An Air France airliner was forced to take emergency evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision with a private plane earlier this week, the French civil aviation authority said Saturday. The near miss happened on Wednesday when a Swiss Cessna failed to follow the standard route after take-off from Nice airport in southern France, cutting into the path of an Air France Airbus 319.

An Egyptian-born magnate behind a recent sale of huge West African and Iraqi oil interests to China pledged 20 million Swiss francs to expand Geneva's art and history museum, authorities said Friday. Addax chief Jean Claude Gandur's donation (18. 6 million dollars, 13. 6 million euros) would double other private and public funding to revive a planned modern extension to the museum designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, officialis in the Geneva municipality said.

An Egyptian-born magnate behind the recent sale of huge West African and Iraqi oil interests to China has pledged 20 million Swiss francs to the art and history museum in Geneva, authorities said Friday. Addax chief Jean Claude Gandur's donation (18. 6 million dollars, 13. 6 million euros) would double other private and public funding to revive a planned modern extension to the museum designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, officials said.

Swiss bank UBS is pressing Swiss lawmakers to endorse a deal settling tax evasion litigation with the United States, warning that 20 other Swiss banks could be targeted if it fell through. In a document seen by AFP on Friday, UBS told parliament that accepting the deal was "in the interest of the Swiss economy.

Most Swiss people believe that banking secrecy would change in five years' time, marking a major shift in opinion according to a survey published Friday by the Swiss Bankers Association. About 57 percent of 1,004 Swiss citizens surveyed said they thought it was "improbable" that banking secrecy would remain in its current form in the next five years, while only 38 percent thought it probable, said the survey.

The Swiss central bank on Thursday raised its forecast for economic growth in Switzerland this year to 1. 5 percent from the 1. 0 percent predicted in December but cautioned that the recovery was fragile. "The signs of an economic recovery are becoming more tangible . . . For 2010, the SNB is now expecting real GDP growth of about 1.

Swiss group Swatch, the world's largest watchmaker, said Thursday it recorded "extraordinary" growth in the first two months of the year and it was confident of meeting its 2010 targets. "The first two months revealed extraordinary growth in all areas," Swatch general direcror Nick Hayek told a press conference.

Libya's UN envoy appealed to Switzerland Wednesday to rescind a "blacklist" of 188 Libyans, including leader Moamer Kadhafi, banned from entering Swiss territory over a festering diplomatic row. Ambassador Abdulrahman Mohammad Shalgham told reporters at Libya's UN mission here that Tripoli was calling on Bern "to cancel this blacklist and to go to arbitration" to resolve the dispute.

Swiss businessman Max Goeldi, who had a Libyan jail sentence cut to four months on appeal, has appealed to the supreme court for a further reduction, his lawyer said on Wednesday. "We lodged an appeal on Monday before the supreme court," lawyer Salah Zahaf told AFP. "Clemency can be granted on the basis of a political decision but the appeal we lodged before the supreme court is a judicial matter," Zahaf added.

Some 24,000 customers may have been affected by the theft of data from a Swiss branch of banking giant HSBC three years ago, Alexandre Zeller, chief executive of HSBC Private Bank, said on Thursday. HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland) said 9,000 of them had since changed banks, leaving 15,000 of its remaining customers concerned by the leak.