Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Composer, Pulitzer winner Carter dies in NY at 103

NEW YORK (AP) — Classical composer Elliott Carter, whose challenging, rhythmically complex works earned him widespread admiration and two Pulitzer Prizes, died Monday at age 103.

His music publishing company, Boosey & Hawkes, called him an "iconic American composer." It didn't give the cause of his death.

In a 1992 Associated Press interview, Carter described his works as "music that asks to be listened to in a concentrated way and listened to with a great deal of attention."

"It's not music that makes an overt theatrical effect," he said then, "but it assumes the listener is listening to sounds and making some sense out of them."

The complex way the instruments interact in his compositions created drama for listeners who made the effort to understand them, but it made them difficult for orchestras to learn. He said he tried to give each of the musicians individuality within the context of a comprehensible whole.

"This seems to me a very dramatic thing in a democratic society," he said.

While little known to the general public, he was long respected by an inner circle of critics and musicians. In 2002, The New York Times said his string quartets were among "the most difficult music ever conceived," and it hailed their "volatile emotions, delicacy and even, in places, plucky humor."

Carter had remained astonishingly active, taking new commissions even as he celebrated his 100th birthday in December 2008 with a gala at Carnegie Hall.

"I'm always proud of the ones I've just written," he said at the time.

In 2005, his "Dialogues," which had premiered the previous year, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in music. And in 2006, his "Boston Concerto" was nominated for a Grammy Award as best classical contemporary composition.

Carter won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his Second String Quartet; his second award was in 1973 for his Third String Quartet. The Juilliard String Quartet chose to mark its 45th anniversary in 1991 with a concert of all four Carter string quartets. A fifth quartet came out in 1995.

When the first National Medal of Arts awards were given in 1985, Carter was one of 10 people honored, along with such legends as Martha Graham, Ralph Ellison and Georgia O'Keeffe. The awards were established by Congress in 1984.

The New Grove Dictionary of American Music said that at its best, Carter's music "sustains an energy of invention that is unrivaled in contemporary composition."

Carter said he found Europeans more receptive to his works than his fellow Americans because music in Europe is not purely entertainment but part of the culture, "something that people make an effort to understand."

The lack of widespread attention didn't seem to bother him.

"I don't think it means anything to be popular," he said. "When we see the popular tastes and the popular opinion constantly being manipulated by all sorts of different ways, it seems to me popularity is a meaningless matter."

In 1992, Carter said his favorite piece of music was his Concerto for Orchestra, written in 1969. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th anniversary season.

"It particularly expresses a picture of the United States as an evolving world of not only people but of nature," he said.

Among his early works were two ballets, "The Minotaur" and "Pocahontas," and his First Symphony. His First String Quartet in 1951 started him on the road to greater critical attention.

Besides composing, Carter wrote extensively about 20th-century music. A collection of articles, "The Writings of Elliott Carter: An American Composer Looks at Modern Music," was published in 1977.

Carter as born in New York in 1908. As a young man he became acquainted with composer Charles Ives, who encouraged his ambitions. He studied literature at Harvard and then studied music in Paris under famed teacher Nadia Boulanger, who also guided Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and Virgil Thompson.

As Carter turned 100, he recalled a visit to the hall in 1924 to see the New York premiere of Igor Stravinsky's revolutionary work "The Rite of Spring."

"I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard, and I wanted to do like that, too," Carter recalled. "Of course, half the audience walked out, which was even more pleasant to me. It seemed much more exciting than Beethoven and Brahms and the rest of them."

In 1939, he married sculptor Helen H. Frost Jones. They had one son. He is survived by his son and a grandson.

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Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients' own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone's cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study's leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

"You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there's no delay," Hare said. "It's also cheaper to make the donor cells," and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

"That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank," he said. There's an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

"It has been a life-changing experience," said Lopez, who lives in Miami. "I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don't have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don't have any fluid in my lungs."

And, he said happily, "My sex drive has improved!"

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

___

Online:

Heart Association: http://www.heart.org

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

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The Romney message: It’s no longer just the economy, stupid

Romney reflected his in TelePrompter at a Virginia rally (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—Four years ago, Mitt Romney was criticized as a man without a message, a presidential candidate straight from the heart of corporate America who was good at making lists and delivering PowerPoint presentations but not so great at explaining exactly why he should be the next president.

His initial slogan in 2008—"True Strength for America's Future"—was vague. And his push to focus on "innovation and transformation"—which advisers back then initially claimed as his chief focus—fell flat. To make up ground, Romney moved to the right, running away from his record as a moderate—a push that earned him a reputation as a phony that doomed his first bid for the Republican nomination.

But as Romney nears the end of his second campaign for the White House, there has been no mistaking the core argument for his candidacy. Speaking this weekend to a crowd of 17,000 people in this battleground district in a swing state, Romney used the word "change" no less than a dozen times—arguing that, if elected, he would bring "real change" and "big change."

"The question of this election comes down to this: do you want more of the same or do you want real change?" Romney said, speaking against the backdrop of an enormous sign that read "Real Change on Day One."

"President Obama promised change, but he could not deliver it," Romney said. "I promise change, and I have a record of achieving it."

To hear Romney on the stump over the past few weeks has been to experience a flashback of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. At virtually every stop, the Republican presidential nominee has spoken of the need for a "new beginning" and of the "movement" he's leading toward the White House. He's transformed a stump speech that four years ago was heavy on lists of talking points on at least a dozen policies into something not unlike a motivational speech. Romney has become a storyteller, talking about the people he's met on his long road to the presidency or the people he's helped in his personal life. He tries to sell voters on his vision of the future, describing the election as a quest for "American greatness" and the desire for a "better tomorrow."

"Obama had his moment, and he's offered 'more of the same,'" Stuart Stevens, Romney's chief strategist, told Yahoo News, using a phrase that James Carville made famous as one of the three core messages of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign: "It's the economy, stupid"; "change versus more of the same"; and "don't forget health care."

The Romney campaign has in essence landed on the same message: the economy, change, and don't forget Obamacare.

"This is our moment," Stevens said," and we think people want something different than the last four years."

Romney's embrace of the "change" argument seems to have driven his rise in the polls in recent weeks, but it comes after months of what many Republicans criticized as a muddled message. For much of 2012, his campaign focused almost exclusively on the economy—arguing it would be the ultimate deciding factor of the election. Asked about other issues, including subjects like abortion or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Romney often would often use the question to pivot back to his argument that he would be the best-positioned candidate to create jobs and get the economy back on track. Romney strayed from his economic message only a few times—mostly in the Republican primary when he fought off challenges from Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich by arguing that he had been a "severely conservative" governor of Massachusetts.

But in keeping his focus on the economy, Romney downplayed what many considered his biggest strength in the race—his experience as a corporate turnaround artist at Bain Capital. The move allowed the Obama campaign and its Democratic allies to turn Romney's Bain experience into one of his greatest vulnerabilities, casting the candidate as a coldblooded corporate type willing to ship American jobs overseas if it was better for the bottom line.

The attacks sent Romney's favorability numbers plummeting—and prompted anxiety within the campaign that he might not recover. Romney aides continue to defend the campaign's slow response, insisting it simply didn't have the money to run ads responding to the attacks.

But many insiders also point fingers to the candidate, himself, who was initially reluctant to talk about his Bain experience or defend himself against Democratic attacks on his personal wealth.

"Believe it or not, Mitt actually is a modest guy," a longtime Romney adviser tells Yahoo News. "He doesn't like talking about his money. And I think he thought the Bain stuff would blow over. He thought it was a silly issue compared to 23 million unemployed and all of the other negatives of the Obama economy. … I think a lot of us did. He was wrong, and we were wrong."

Yet on stage in recent weeks, Romney seems to have finally found his voice on the issue, delivering a simple and straightforward explanation of his resume.

"I built a business, and turned around another," Romney said at an appearance outside Milwaukee last week. "I helped put an Olympics back on track. And with a Democratic legislature, I helped turn my state from deficit to surplus, from job losses to job growth, and from higher taxes to higher take-home pay. This is why I am running for president. I know how to change the course the nation is on, how to get us to a balanced budget and how to build jobs and rising take-home pay."

A longtime Republican consultant close to the Romney campaign privately questioned why the candidate wasn't making this "simpler argument" earlier in the campaign. "If the Romney people have been seeing out there in the past few days would have shown up over the summer, this race might not be so close," the consultant, who declined to be named, told Yahoo News.

But other Romney aides argue that the candidate first needed to show his "real" side to voters--something his campaign could not afford to do until after the Republican convention.

"The message that works so well does so in part because the electorate finally has a sense of who he really is. Now that they do, the message and the messenger are integrated," Tom Rath, a New Hampshire political consultant and a longtime Romney adviser, told Yahoo News.  "It is a great message, one that we always believed could win, but one that could only work when the voters felt they knew him well enough to make it credible."

In recent weeks, Romney has sounded a centrist tone, vowing to work with lawmakers "on both sides of the aisle who care more about country than politics." Obama is too politically radioactive to overcome the partisan gridlock of Washington," Romney regularly says.

"He will be unable to work with the people in Congress," he says. "He has ignored them, attacked them, blamed them. … The president was right when he said he can't change Washington from the inside. … You can take him at his word."

Stuart Stevens insists Romney's latest message isn't much different than speeches he gave early in his campaign—though Stevens acknowledges the phrase "change" wasn't as prominent.

"Campaigns aren't static, otherwise no one would listen to you," Stevens told Yahoo News. But, he added, Obama gave Romney an opportunity to play the "change" card by not presenting a clearer picture of what he would do with a second term.

"That was a huge opportunity for us," Stevens said. "It allowed us to present the contrast between us and them … In a campaign, you have different moments to say different things.

Inside the campaign, aides view Romney as an agent of change not unlike Obama four years ago. They admit Romney will never inspire crowds like Obama did in '08, but in an argument Romney hopes will decide the election, they contend he can deliver on the change Obama promised to bring to Washington.

"Change is not a message that Barack Obama invented," Stevens said. "It's a message that he co-opted … and a message he didn't deliver on. And Mitt Romney can."

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China relentlessly harries Japan in island dispute

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese patrol boats have harried the Japanese Coast Guard many times a week for more than a month in an unusually relentless response to their latest maritime spat.

Four Chinese craft typically push to within hailing distance of Japan's ships. They flash illuminated signs in Japanese to press Beijing's argument that it has ancient claims to a set of tiny East China Sea islands now controlled by Tokyo. China says its craft have tried to chase the Japanese away at least once, although Japan denies any of its ships fled.

The huge uptick in incidents has brought the sides into dangerously close proximity, reflecting a campaign by Beijing to wear down Japanese resolve with low-level, non-military maneuvers but also boosting the risk of a clash.

Although China wields a formidable arsenal, it has yet to deploy military assets in such encounters. Instead, Beijing has dispatched ships from government maritime agencies — only one of which is armed — to keep a lid on gunfire. Those agencies are now receiving added attention, with new ships on order and a national call going out for recruits.

China says ships from its Marine Surveillance service are merely defending Chinese sovereignty and protesting illegal Japanese control over the uninhabited islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The missions began after Japan's government purchased three of the five islands from their private Japanese owner in September, enraging a Chinese government that saw it as an attempt to boost Japan's sovereignty claim. It also sparked violent anti-Japanese protests in dozens of Chinese cities.

China's short-term goal has been primarily to force Japan to at least acknowledge that the islands are in dispute — something it has refused to do — but the boost in patrols raises the likelihood of a bigger confrontation, said Wang Dong, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies at Peking University.

"I'm very concerned about the current situation. The possibility of escalation cannot be ruled out," Wang said.

With emotions running high, any accident or miscalculation in these maritime missions could yield unexpected outcomes.

"One side might deploy a naval vessel in a support fashion, a move that the other would match," said M. Taylor Fravel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is closely following the dispute.

Japan has made it clear that it intends to meet the Chinese challenge in kind.

Japanese Coast Guard spokesman Yasuhiko Oku said the dispute was a factor behind the government's allocation last week of 17 billion yen ($212 million) to beef up the Coast Guard fleet with seven new patrol ships and three helicopters, though he said the new assets are not only for use around the islands.

Oku declined, for national security reasons, to say how many ships patrol the islands. But he said the dispute has been a "significant draw" on resources.

Tensions in the region were highlighted by U.S.-Japan naval exercises that began Monday at various locations, involving some 37,400 Japanese and 10,000 U.S. troops. At the same time, Japanese and Chinese diplomats were in consultation in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

China's Foreign Ministry said the exercises were "not conducive to mutual trust in regional security," and urged the parties to "do more that helps regional peace and stability."

Already, the near-constant presence of Chinese ships around the disputed islands has stretched the Japanese Coast Guard, which pulled out of a recent fleet review to free up ships for patrols. That's a victory of sorts for Beijing's vow to claim what it calls sacred territory, between Taiwan and Japan's Okinawa. Taiwan also claims the islands, which were under U.S. administration after World War II before reverting to Japanese control in 1972.

Chinese outrage stems partly from lingering resentment over Japan's brutal World War II occupation of much of China, feelings that are constantly stoked by China's education system and state-controlled media. But control of sea lanes and potentially rich undersea minerals are also at play, along with China's burning desire for respect as a world power.

China and Japan have no formal agreement on preventing unintended incidents at sea, making it easier for events to spin out of control as they did when a Chinese fishing boat rammed a Japanese cutter in 2010, leading to a diplomatic standoff and anti-Japanese protests in China.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last week that the sides need to calm down. "It's incredibly important that both countries appreciate what they have built and step back from the brink," Campbell said in Washington.

Chinese craft entered waters near the islands for the third consecutive day on Sunday, marking at least the 11th incursion in recent weeks. The Japanese Coast Guard has described all the incidents as routine without a risk of clashes, and said none of its ships have backed down.

However, the Chinese government said last week that its boats had performed "expulsion measures" against Japanese ships.

"Chinese law enforcement vessels have a foothold in the waters around Diaoyu and are expanding their activities to safeguard Chinese sovereignty," China's stridently nationalistic Communist Party tabloid Global Times said last Wednesday. It called that a warning to the Philippines, Vietnam and other neighbors to "think twice before they provoke China."

Some scholars say China's apparent strategy to gradually erode Japanese control through low-key actions has been abetted by a non-committal response from Washington, who has said it takes no stance on the islands' sovereignty despite recognizing its treaty obligations to back Tokyo in a conflict.

China uses a similar approach in the South China Sea where it has maritime disputes with several other nations.

Earlier this year, Beijing managed to nudge the Philippines out of a disputed shoal by entering a lengthy but nonviolent maritime standoff. After both sides stood down, China set up barriers with ropes and buoys to block further access. Chinese ships have also sought to cut sonar cables and otherwise harass ships of the U.S. Navy.

___

Associated Press writers Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Microsoft CEO expects volumes on Windows Phone to "ramp quickly"

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Force is strong with dream 'Star Wars' directors

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's the question we've all been pondering from the second we heard that three more "Star Wars" movies were planned: Who will direct them?

When George Lucas announced last week he was selling Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion, he also revealed that the long-rumored Episodes VI, VII and IX were in the works. Instantly, fans began tossing around names of directors who'd be a good fit for this revered material.

So let's call this a wish list, a wouldn't-it-be-cool list. Because a lot of the people here are tied up with franchises of their own — who knows if they'd be available to take over the first of these films, due out in 2015? Others are just people whose work I admire and I'd be curious to see how they'd apply their styles within this universe.

Then there's also the theory that Disney executives and Kathleen Kennedy, the current co-chairman of Lucasfilm who will become the division's president, won't want an auteur, someone who would put his or her own aesthetic stamp on the franchise. There goes your dream of seeing Chewbacca and R2-D2 through the eyes of David Lynch.

Whoever is chosen, whether it's a new director for each film or the same person taking over the trilogy, I think I speak for all of us when I say: Please, no Ewoks:

— J.J. Abrams: The most obvious choice, really. His sci-fi bona fides were already beyond reproach, and he solidified them with his reimagining of the "Star Trek" franchise in 2009. His sequel "Star Trek Into Darkness" is due out next year. This just makes sense all around.

— Joss Whedon: Another pretty obvious choice. Like Abrams, he has cultivated a well-deserved and loyal following among sci-fi fans between "Firefly" and "Serenity," but he catapulted himself into a whole 'nother stratosphere with this summer's enormous hit "The Avengers." Thing is, he may be just a tad busy with "The Avengers 2" — which is also due out in 2015.

— Brad Bird: He directed the most recent and best in film in the "Mission: Impossible" series, last year's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol." It gave Bird the opportunity to use his animation expertise from the beloved Pixar films "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" to make a live-action movie that was lively and thrillingly staged. This would be an excellent fit.

— Jon Favreau: He's a massive "Star wars" fan and is extremely knowledgeable about Lucas and his life. He's also shown he can manipulate the kind of massive machinery it takes to make a blockbuster with the hugely successful "Iron Man" movies. This would also be a no-brainer.

— Christopher Nolan: Dark Knight. 'Nuff said.

— Peter Jackson: Sure, it makes sense. He's gotten his arms around gigantic franchises with rabid fan bases, to universal acclaim and awards, with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. But the last of his three "Hobbit" movies comes out in 2014. He might already be kinda wiped out at this point.

— David Fincher: A hugely confident, virtuoso filmmaker mostly known for drama, but his remake of the Swedish hit "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was epic and just heart-poundingly thrilling, and "The Social Network" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" showcased his mastery of special-effects trickery.

— Sam Mendes: This might seem like an odd choice until you see "Skyfall" this weekend. And you really should see "Skyfall" this weekend. But the "American Beauty" director said the whole experience of making a James Bond movie left him "knackered," to quote him, so who knows whether he'd be up for such a massive undertaking so soon.

— Matt Reeves: A longtime friend and collaborator of Abrams, he directed "Cloverfield" which showed he has an eye for visceral sci-fi action. But "Let Me In," his English-language version of the Swedish vampire thriller "Let the Right One In," revealed his ability to create a chilly, tense mood.

— Matthew Vaughn: His "Kick-Ass" was exactly that, a lively, funny tale of wannabe superheroes, while his "X-Men: First Class" was one of the better-reviewed films in the series. Before that, his debut film "Layer Cake" (starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig) showed an instinctive ability to create tension and mood.

— Mark Romanek: He's just such an amazing visual stylist, I'd love to see what he'd do with this kind of well-established material. He made his name as a music video director, including the super-expensive space-age video for Michael Jackson's "Scream." But the couple of features he's made — "One Hour Photo" and "Never Let Me Go" — were so gorgeous and had such a signature look, I'd be curious to see what he could do with a bigger toy box

— Kathryn Bigelow: She's just a bad-ass, a pioneering female action director. She proved she had a way with big, splashy set pieces two decades ago with "Point Break" and became the first woman to win the best-director Oscar for "The Hurt Locker." I'd love to see this male-centric universe from a female perspective.

— Guillermo del Toro: This is my dream "Star Wars" director. Of course, it will never happen. The ingenious maker of "Pan's Labyrinth" and the "Hellboy" movies has a visual style that's so wonderfully weird and inspired, it would never be allowed in such a structured setting. But it would be wondrous to watch.

— Ben Affleck: Probably not the first name you would have thought of a month ago. But "Argo" proved that Affleck is a major filmmaker, and showed he could step deftly from the intimate drama of "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town" into much a larger and more complicated project. Plus it would allow him to redeem himself with fanboys following the debacle of "Daredevil."

___

Who would you like to see direct the next three "Star Wars" movies? Tell AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire .

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Surgery seems best for heart disease in diabetics

LOS ANGELES (AP) — New research shows that people with diabetes and several clogged heart arteries fare better with bypass surgery instead of having stents placed to prop open their blood vessels.

Doctors compared the treatments in a study of 1,900 diabetics and looked five years later to see how many had suffered a heart attack, stroke or death. Only 19 percent of the bypass group had, versus 27 percent of those given stents.

People like this represent about one-fourth of all heart disease patients.

Results were discussed Sunday at an American Heart Association conference and published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Will it all come down to Ohio? Both campaigns focus on the state

Most Memorable 2012 Campaign Moments http://t.co/hOTxtWMO

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China's Communists endorse Bo Xilai's expulsion

BEIJING (AP) — China's ruling Communist elite have endorsed the expulsion of former high-flying politician Bo Xilai and approved final preparations for the party's upcoming congress.

The closed-door meeting of the Central Committee that ended Sunday was the last before Communist Party leader Hu Jintao and others in his government begin to cede power to Vice President Xi Jinping and others at the congress, which opens Thursday.

The Central Committee said in a statement by the official Xinhua News Agency that it endorsed decisions to expel Bo and former Railways Minister Liu Zhijun from the Communist Party. Bo is accused of a range of misdeeds including covering up his wife's murder of a British businessman. Liu faces corruption charges.

Xinhua said Hu presided over the meeting and delivered a work report. It said Xi introduced a report of the current five-year session and an amendment to the party charter, both of which will be discussed at the congress. It gave no details.

Xinhua said delegates agreed that the past five years had been "extraordinary" because China had faced a difficult international environment as well as arduous tasks of reform, development and stability.

It also said the economy had grown stably and rapidly, there had been major progress on reform and opening-up, and people's living conditions had improved remarkably.

The policy-setting committee also promoted two generals to the party commission that oversees the military: air force Gen. Xu Qiliang and Gen. Fan Changlong, a career soldier who runs the Jinan Military Area Command and took part in relief efforts after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

The Central Committee is comprised of about 370 people from the upper ranks of the party, government and military.

Bo's ouster earlier this year widened rifts within a leadership that likes to project an image of unity. It also complicated the bargaining over the roster of new leaders.

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