Zurich  - Football's ruling body FIFA asked Tuesday that all member associations scheduled to hold midweek 2010 World Cup qualifiers observe a minute's silence prior to kick-off in memory of the 22 victims of last weekend's Abidjan stadium disaster.

Zurich - Football's ruling body FIFA asked Monday for a full report from the football federation of the Ivory Coast after 22 people died Sunday when a wall collapsed during a World Cup qualifying match between Ivory Coast and Malawi.

Tens of thousands of fans were packed into the Houphouet-Boigny stadium in Abidjan, the West African Nation's largest city, to watch Chelsea star and national hero Didier Drogba score twice in a 5-0 rout of Malawi.

However, tragedy struck when fans appear to have panicked following the collapse of a wall.

Zurich - Football's governing body FIFA and the European body UEFA on Tuesday said they rejected the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) 'whereabouts' rule.

In a statement issued by FIFA the organizations said they rejected the notion of having to inform doping officials of the individual location of team-sport athletes.

Zurich - Swiss Life, the largest insurance company in Switzerland, announced Tuesday it was forming a strategic partnership with German insurer Talanx.

Talanx was to purchase up to a 9.9 per cent stake in Swiss Life and a 8.4 per cent share in MLP, a German pension specialist, from Swiss Life.

The news came as Swiss Life announced a 345 million Swiss franc (306.9 million dollars) net profit for 2008 and said it had a solid capital base.

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.

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.