PRESS DIGEST-Financial Times, Wall St Journal Asia editions

SINGAPORE, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal carried the following stories in their Asia print and/or Web site editions on Thursday.

Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

FINANCIAL TIMES (www.ft.com)

-- Merrill Lynch MER.N sparked fear that Wall Street could face further heavy losses from credit market turmoil, revealing $7.9bn in writedowns on mortgage-related securities during the third quarter.

-- Warren Buffett urged investors on Wednesday to be cautious about the Chinese stock market, which has risen nearly sixfold in the past two years. Speaking on a visit to Dalian in north-east China, Mr Buffett said he was always sceptical about markets that had risen as sharply as Chinese shares have.

-- Microsoft (MSFT.O) on Wednesday took a $240 million stake in Facebook, the online social network, a move that puts a value on the site, which has yet to make a profit, of $15 billion. The software group has also beaten Google (GOOG.O) to striking a key advertising deal.

-- Japan's Financial Services Agency signalled a shift towards a more UK-style principles-based regulatory model on Wednesday, to strengthen the country's competitiveness as a financial centre.

-- Alibaba.com has attracted more than $100 billion in orders from institutional investors for its planned $1.5 billion capital raising, reflecting keen demand for one of Hong Kong's hottest offerings this year.

-- Hank Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, on Wednesday threw his weight behind plans to turn Mumbai into an international financial centre in a speech ahead of his first official visit to India later this week.

-- Australia's prime minister, John Howard, suffered a further blow in his faltering re-election campaign on Wednesday with the release of worse-than-expected inflation figures that make an election-eve interest rate rise a near certainty. WALL STREET JOURNAL (www.wsj.com)

-- TPG is investing in pharmaceutical-research-outsourcing company Shanghai ChemPartner, according to people familiar with the deal, underscoring the industry's growing importance as it effectively rents out Chinese scientists to multi-national drug companies.

-- China launched its first lunar probe, the initial step in an ambitious 10-year plan to send a rover to the moon and return it to earth.

-- PetroChina Co. (0857.HK) set an indicative price range of 15 yuan to 16.70 yuan ($2 to $2.23) a share for its initial public offering of Class A stock, which could raise as much as 66.8 billion yuan, or about $8.9 billion.

-- China Southern Airlines Co.'s (1055.HK) net profit rose 49 percent in the third quarter as China's economic expansion helped boost passenger numbers. The Guangzhou-based carrier said net profit rose to 1.88 billion yuan ($250.5 million) from 1.26 billion yuan a year earlier, according to Chinese accounting rules.

-- IHG (IHG.L) unveiled a $1 billion revamp of its Holiday Inn brand encompassing over 3,000 hotels, including 100 in Asia.

-- Zhong An Real Estate set a price range for its Hong Kong IPO of shares that could raise up to $500 million.

-- Morgan Stanley (MS.N) agreed to buy a 35 percent stake in China's Jutian Fund Management, giving the Wall Street bank access to the country's rapidly growing fund-management sector.

-- A U.S. official said China has slowed cooperation with the U.S. on fighting product piracy since Washington complained to the WTO on the issue earlier this year.