Zurich  - The Swiss bank UBS said Thursday it has made a tender offer worth up to 1 billion euros (1.34 billion dollars) to buy back bonds in an attempt to raise its Tier 1 regulatory capital ratio.

The offer pertains to four lower tier 2 bonds with maturity dates between November 2015 and September 2019 and a notional value of around 7 billion Swiss francs (6.15 billion dollars).

The bank said in a statement that the bonds were currently trading at a significant discount to their original issuance price.

Tier 1 capital ratio is a regulatory measure of a bank's financial stamina.

Geneva - A new shortened draft declaration for an upcoming UN conference on racism which deletes direct references to Israel may be enough to woo back countries threatening to boycott the summit, officials hoped on Wednesday.

Both Israel and the US left the previous summit, in Durban in 2001, over criticisms of Israel, and Israel and Canada were threatening to boycott the upcoming conference in Geneva over the same issue.

Bern  - Revised government figures for 2009 released Tuesday showed that Switzerland's economy would shrink by 2.2 per cent and the recession would be significantly worse than had been envisaged.

Previous statistics by the Swiss Economic Ministry had predicted a contraction of 0.8 per cent.

The latest forecast said that if there was an easing of the global financial crisis, Switzerland could see slightly positive growth of 0.1 per cent in 2010, even as the labour market would continue to deteriorate.

Zurich - During 2008, 240,500 people were killed by natural and man-made disasters and it one of the "costliest catastrophe years" ever for insurance companies, a study showed Tuesday.

The research done for Swiss Re, the re-insurer, said there were 311 "catastrophic events" last year, of which 137 were considered natural disasters. The total direct damage to the world economy was estimated to stand at 269 billion dollars.

Zurich - Cytos Biotechnology said Tuesday a vaccine it was developing for hypertension has failed to show positive results and the company would scale back a significant amount of its workforce in response.

The company's stock was down over 33 per cent in mid-afternoon trading on the Zurich exchange following the announcement.

"The study results show that the vaccine was safe and well tolerated, but the new treatment regimen failed to induce a significant reduction of the ambulatory blood pressure," Cytos said in a statement.

Geneva - The United Nations emergency air service, used to move food, medical assistance and aid workers to remote and dangerous locations, will have to shut its West Africa operation due to a lack of funds, the organisation announced on Tuesday.

The air service, run by the World Food Programme, is used to get aid and staff to areas that cannot be reached by land, whether owing to security concerns, lack of infrastructure or rough terrain.