China shuts down thousands of net cafés

In a move which further isolates China from the rest of the online world, Beijing has ordered the closure of more than 17,000 Internet bars and cafés - claiming they failed to block banned websites.

A sweep of nearly 100,000 of the country's Internet cafés over the past six months has seen around a sixth of them closed down for allowing users to visit subversive or pornographic sites.

"Wang ba" as they are known, can be found in most towns and even some large villages, as around 27 million of China's 1.3 billion population now log on. Only half of the nation's Internet bars have installed all the necessary software to block restricted Web sites and keep record of user activities, official state media reported.

Chinese authorities fear that the Internet may be used for political dissent, as well as accessing illegal pornographic material and banned foreign news websites.