A popular online education platform has blocked its services from Cuba, Iran and Sudan to adhere to US sanctions on international trading. Coursera, the social entrepreneurship company to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), has more than 21 million student enrollments in over 180 countries. Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng told The Stream there have been thousands of failed attempts to login since the block was initiated last Friday.

This week, after many months of preparation two of China's leading educational institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University, joined the EdX online educational consortium by providing six courses available without charge online. China now has officially entered the movement known as the Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOC.