Photo: A building in the "old town" of Beichuan, which was abandoned after the 2008 earthquake, is surrounded by flood waters.
Source: Yang Chao, China News Agency via Sina

July 12, 2013
Translated by Luo Shuqi and Pang Lei

Top stories in Friday's papers include coverage of comments made by Xi Jinping about Mao's "Two Musts," during a trip to Hebei, the Ministry of Defense response to sections of a recent report from the Japanese Defense Ministry and more details about what exactly happened during the Asiana plane crash in San Franciso on July 6.

There's also plenty of coverage of the deadly floods sweeping through large areas of the country, with Sichuan Province especially hard hit. As of Thursday afternoon, a landslide had led to 18 deaths in a village in the city of Dujiangyan.

Keep readiing below for a translated digests of some of the other stories being reported by mainland Chinese media outlets today.

China Banking Regulatory Commission Tightens Control over Wealth Management Products
21st Century Business Herald
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) will require commercial banks to register any wealth management products they sell in a database run by China Government Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited (中央国债登记结算有限公司). The banks have until July 31 to register all of their wealth management products that they've issued since Jan 1, 2011. In the future, each new product should be registered at least 10 working days before its final release. The banks will be required to enter detailed information into the database including, for example, product name, target investors and operation mode in order that the CBRC is better able to supervise the release of such financial products. Experts say that the database will mark the end of period in which a lack of effective supervision led to the irrational and undesirable expansion of such financial products.
Original article: [Chinese]

China's Box Office Exceeds Ten Billion Yuan in the First Half of 2013
Beijing News
Statistics published by the State Administration of Press Publication, Radio, Film and Television show that China's box office reached 10.9 billion yuan in the first six months of this year. The total box office of domestic films was 6.85 billion, more than the 4.1 billion yuan in ticket sales for imported films.
Original article: [Chinese]

10 New Urban Clusters to be Part of Urbanization Plan
National Business Daily
A recent report delivered by Xu Shaoshi (徐绍史), the director of National Development and Reform Commission (NRDC), to the Standing Committee of the NPC, set the tone for a long-awaited but yet-to-be released urbanization plan. Xu said that numerous "urban diseases" need to be tackled. In addition to gradually relaxing the restrictions on household registration or Hukou, the government also want to address the issue of regional inequality in relation to economic development. Currently China has 10 urban clusters which are concentrated in the eastern part of the county and account for two thirds of China's total economic worth. The next step, according to Xu, is to establish ten more urban clusters with the majority of them located in central and western regions of the country.
Original article: [Chinese]

CAAC to Get Serious about Flight Delays
Southern Metropolis Daily
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced plans to deal with the severe problem of flight delays in China. The problem impacts on millions of travelers and is getting worse. On July 9, for instance, 77 percent of flights departing Beijing's Capital Airport were delayed. Li Jiaxiang (李家祥), the director of CAAC, said that they agency plans to introduce heavy penalties for a variety of infractions related to flight delays. Airlines that don't meet the target of having 50 percent of flights leave on time, will receive a warning notice. The slot time of a flight that is delayed for over four hours due to an avoidable reason and becomes the direct cause of collective unrest will be cancelled for the rest of the quarter and any application by the airline for the same slot in the following quarter would not be accepted.
Original article: [Chinese]

China Strives to Keep Urban Unemployment Rate under 5%
Caijing News
An official from Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) claims that China is endeavoring to maintain the unemployment rate at below 5 percent. A scholar from the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences (BASS) said that economic growth rate has a positive correlation with employment and that social stability would be severely impacted if the unemployment rate were to exceed a certain level. In March 2013, the government said that it planned to add more than 9 million new jobs in 2013 and keep the urban jobless rate at below 4.6 percent.
Original article: [Chinese]