The party has just begun and the world is watching

The Chinese Communist Party, the world's largest political party with some 64 million members opened its 17th Party Congress yesterday. With over 2,200 delegates from all over the nation, the congress was opened by parliament chief Wu Bangguo with the national anthem, followed by a moment of silence marked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and other "martyrs of the revolution" before President Hu Jintao began addressing the party. A great sense of expectation there as you can see on the video now that the party has just begun, but as the days go by, we will no doubt see more and more of these scenes instead.

A whole load of stories have appeared on the internet within just one day, but fear not, Shanghaiist has scoured the internet to save you time. Here are some of the more interesting headlines that caught our attention:
Hu Jintao mentions "democracy" more than 60 times in landmark report [Xinhua]
Hu sets goal of quadrupling per capita GDP [Xinhua]
Hu Jintao advocates 'conservation culture' for 1st time [Xinhua]
China's Congressional Congress Heralds a Generational Shift [WSJ]
China's Communist Party to Allow More Local Elections [Bloomberg]
China parliament chief Wu Bangguo shaped by Shanghai [Reuters]