BEIJING — China's leadership transition officially edged ahead Saturday, with the executive body of the Communist Party Congress forwarding a list of names to congress delegates for review. State media reported that the congress's presidium, 41 current and former members of the leadership, approved the candidate list for the Central Committee and sent it to the delegates. The delegates will cast votes before the congress closes Wednesday to choose the Central Committee, a roughly 350-member body. The Central Committee, in turn, will select the top leadership. The move is largely a formality, as is the congress itself. Deciding the lineup of leading bodies falls to a small group of power brokers. Vice President Xi Jinping has been all-but formally announced to replace President Hu Jintao as party chief and president. China Central Television showed Hu addressing the meeting of the presidium, which was presided over by Xi. Candidates for the Central Committee outnumber seats by only a small portion, giving the 2,268 congress delegates little choice except on the margins. In addition to the name list for Central Committee members, the meeting also forwarded candidate lists for the party's internal watchdog agency, state media reported. China plans manned space launch next year China is aiming to launch its next manned space mission as early as June 2013, state media reported Saturday, as the country steps up its ambitious exploration program. The Shenzhou-10, with three crew members, is aiming for a primary launch window in June, Niu Hongguang, deputy commander-in-chief of the manned space program, told China National Radio in an interview Friday. Niu, speaking on the sidelines of China's 18th Communist Party Congress that kicked off Thursday in Beijing, said officials had identified a back-up launch window for July or August. He said one of the three astronauts would likely be a woman. China sent its first female astronaut, Liu Yang, into space earlier this year on the Shenzhou-9 in the country's first manual space docking mission. The docking procedure was a major milestone in the country's ambitious space program that has a goal of building a space station by the end of the decade. — Agencies
