PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Sept 25

Sept 25 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* U.S. President Barack Obama will announce Friday that the once elite club of rich industrial nations known as the Group of 7 will be permanently replaced as a global forum for economic policy by the much broader Group of 20 that includes China, Brazil, India and other fast-growing developing countries, administration officials said Thursday.

* This December, high-speed trains designed by the German conglomerate Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE) and adapted for Russian winters will ply the rails between St. Petersburg and Moscow. But Siemens hopes their final destination will be the last laggard of the high-speed age: the United States.

* Twitter, which has no discernible revenue, is set to raise about $100 million of new funding that would value the company at around $1 billion, a person briefed on the company's plans said Thursday.

* The Air Force began its third effort to award a $35 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers on Thursday, and Pentagon officials promised that the rules would be clear enough to steer the hotly disputed contest "straight down the middle."

* Philips (PHG.AS) has the first entry in an Energy Department contest to build a more efficient 60-watt light bulb.

* Sales of previously owned homes fell unexpectedly last month, an industry group reported Thursday, showing that a budding recovery in the housing market remained weak.

* Paul Volcker, a top White House economic adviser, said Thursday that the Obama administration's proposed overhaul of financial rules would preserve the policy of "too big to fail" and could lead to future banking bailouts.

* The Federal Reserve said on Thursday that it was further scaling back two emergency lending programs as the economy improved.

* Nomura Holdings (8604.T) announced late Thursday it would raise up to 511 billion yen, or $5.6 billion, by selling about 800 million shares - its second share sale in six months, and is its largest equity sale ever.

* Japan Airlines Corp 9205.T pleaded on Thursday for a government bailout, but the new transport minister withheld support on concerns that the carrier's cost-cutting plans would not go far enough.

* The global financial crisis knocked Germany and the rest of the world badly off course this year. Yet as the country grinds toward national elections on Sunday, the campaign's most notable absence has been a debate over the direction and future of Europe's largest economy.

* A French emissions exchange and a Chinese exchange are forming a carbon market standard for China, marking a step toward a voluntary system to limit greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and forestry in the world's top emitter.

* Just a few years after compelling foreign oil companies to renegotiate their contracts in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited executives from some of the largest such companies to discuss new work on Siberian natural gas fields.

* A huge fire last year at a sugar refinery near Savannah, Georgia, that killed 14 workers and injured 36 more was "entirely preventable," a federal official said Thursday as the results of an investigation into the fire's causes were released.

* Hyatt Hotels is facing a wave of anger and protests as a result of its decision to lay off 98 members of its housekeeping staff at three Boston area hotels and replace them with lower paid workers.

* The Australian government rejected Chinese investments in two mining projects on Thursday in a setback for Beijing's push this week to expand its overseas holdings of natural resources.

* The slide in Ireland's gross domestic product halted in the second quarter from the preceding three months, according to official data released Thursday, a sign of a return to stability in one of the worst performing economies in the West.

* The BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM.TO) reported a decline in quarterly profit on Thursday because of charges for a patent settlement, and said revenue for the current quarter would fall below Wall Street's expectations.

* Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) on Thursday forecast revenue for 2010 that might miss some analysts' estimates.

* South Korea and China lead the world's 20 largest economies in the percentage of economic stimulus money they invest in environmental projects, the United Nations Environment Program reported Thursday.

* The first 10 companies due to list on ChiNext, the Nasdaq-style board in China, plan to sell shares at price-to-earnings ratios that are 50 percent above those of their main-board peers, just as worries over speculation spurred officials to announce strict new trading rules Thursday.

* Metallurgical Corp of China (1618.HK), a building and engineering firm that raised $2.3 billion in Hong Kong's biggest initial public offering this year, fell in its debut on the exchange Thursday as investors apparently tired from a deluge of such offerings and judged the stock to be too expensive given an uncertain outlook for China's steel industry.

* Songbird Estates SBDb.L, the controller of the Canary Wharf financial district in London, is planning to sell 895 million pounds in shares to repay a Citigroup loan and to finance projects, the chairman of the property company said Thursday.

* Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N), the drugstore chain, posted a quarterly loss on Thursday and lowered its expectations for the rest of the year because of the weak economy and high unemployment.