Too much information

One afternoon, a year ago, I deleted my Facebook account. And that was that. After years of enthusiastic/ridiculous/sometimes slightly drunken communications, I went cold turkey.

The presidential programs

Whatever you might think of Barack Obama's qualities as a politician, there's little doubt that he is a man with good taste in television.

Fake, but Britney Spears is still fascinating

So Britney Spears can't sing? Quelle surprise, as the French say. The leak of a dull, flat, wobbly vocal exposed as utterly inept without the aid of autotune is just the latest opportunity to mock her minimal musical ability - as if that was even a consideration in a contemporary pop career.

How flaws make a great campaigner

When Emma Watson was announced as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Women, she seemed the perfect choice. Academic: check. Good girl image: check. International profile: check. Beatific smile: check.

'Gollum' was a hoax after all: 'monster' spotted in China mountains was actor shooting advertisement

It was the stuff of nightmares. On a sunny day in the mountains near the Great Wall of China, a lone hiker turned a corner to find a mysterious creature with bronze skin and long drooping ears squatting by a pool of water.

Bringing you the news for 30 years

It's not often that the birth of a newspaper makes news around the world.

But China Daily did. And so it was on June 1, 1981 that the first edition rolled off the presses to the accompaniment of what seemed a global media drumbeat.

There was good reason: The steadily-growing stream of tourists, businessmen, consultants and "foreign experts" making their way to the country found themselves almost isolated from the outside world - and didn't know much of what was happening in the country, either.

In today's plugged-in world, it might be difficult to comprehend that news in English was then at such a premium.

Milestones

Over the past 30 years, China Daily has developed into a strong all-media group with 12 print publications, a national portal website with eight sub-websites, around-the-clock news and information services on three mobile platforms and 14 applications and products on wireless terminals.

Avid reader who uses China Daily at work

Zhang Xinhong, 49, a leading light in China's public relations industry, says he has established a strong relationship with China Daily over the last three decades.

Trailblazers of reform

In the 1980s, when Li Zhongjian saw an expensive overseas-made cigarette lighter, he had the foresight to figure out how to make it in his home city of Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang province. Li formed a company - something very rare in China then - to make the lighters, initially for the domestic market.

A bold vision that changed China

Thirty years ago, Deng Xiaoping set out an economic vision which seemed astonishing - a 70-year policy to transform China into an advanced economy. However, the targets for its first 30 years have already been exceeded and China's economic achievements are probably the most extraordinary in world history.

Growing pains ... and gains

When I first saw China Daily in June 1981, I mistook it for a foreign newspaper. And it still puzzles me how my English teacher at a high school in the small town of Nanyang in Henan province, about 1,000 kilometers from Beijing, learned about the newspaper and had become one of its earliest subscribers. Unlike today, news and information then traveled at snail's pace.

High-speed, sustainable development model

One of three new districts in Beijing, Shunyi has been designated an airport economic zone and modern manufacturing base, and has been introducing various industries in recent years to help its economy.