Singapore - Singapore and Kuwait have concluded an Open Skies Agreement (OSA), allowing for full flexibility on air services by carriers from both countries, officials announced Tuesday.

Under the new agreement, Singapore carriers may now operate any number of flights between Singapore and points in Kuwait, as well as beyond Kuwait to any other city in the world.

Similarly, Kuwait carriers will be able to operate any number of flights to and beyond Singapore, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore said.

A Memorandum of Understanding on Air Services between the two governments was signed Tuesday at the at the Seif Palace in Kuwait City.

The Assam police have arrested two more suspects in connection with the serial blasts that devastated the state.

The two suspected -- Muzamul Haque and Anwarlul Haque--were arrested from Lakhimpur.

With these arrests total number of persons nabbed by the police rose to five. Earlier three persons were arrested on Saturday.

According to police- the two were in car-theft racket. They changed the number of those vehicles which were used in Guwahati and Bongaigaon blasts.

The police have got vital clues. It would soon zero in on the culprits responsible for the blasts, said Official spokesman and principal secretary (Home) Subhas Das.

Stockholm - Swedbank, one of four major Swedish banking groups, Tuesday confirmed it planned to sign on to a stability plan approved last week.

The application to join the guarantee programme was to be filed shortly, the group said.

The guarantee fund is worth 1.5 trillion kronor (201 billion dollars) and banks would have to comply with restrictions concerning bonus payments and other benefits to top executives.

The scheme is initially scheduled to run until April 2009.

Melbourne, Nov 4 : Former Australia captain Mark Taylor has said that current skipper Ricky Ponting should have known better than to become embroiled in an ugly on-field spat with Brett Lee.

Ponting and Lee were involved in a heated exchange during the second Test against India when the pacer was not given a bowl on the fourth morning of the match.

Australia maintained the reason for overlooking Lee was because of a slow over rate, but it was clear Ponting, who even turned to the rarely used medium pace of Mike Hussey, had lost confidence in his spearhead, who has struggled through the entire campaign.

Taylor, now a Cricket Australia board director, said the Australian skipper should have shown greater discretion.

Washington, Nov 4 : A new research by ecologists has determined that natural selection favors only some species based on their rate of metabolism, meaning how fast a species consumes energy, per unit mass, per unit time.

A team from the University of California (UC) Riverside undertook the research.

The researchers studied 3006 species, the largest number of species ever analyzed in a single study. The species list encompasses much of the range of biological diversity on Earth – from bacteria to elephants, and algae to sapling trees.

To the researchers’ surprise, they found that the mean metabolic rate of the species at rest fell on a narrow range of values – 0.3 to 9 Watts per kilogram.

Washington, Nov 4 : Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood is set to give up his acting career for the director’s chair.

The 78-year-old star has hinted that his forthcoming starring role in Gran Torino will be his last.

He has cut back on his acting career in recent years to concentrate on directing.

"It''ll (Gran Torino) probably be my last. I''ll be drummed out of it after this one,” Contactmusic quoted Eastwood, as telling Ireland''s Sunday World newspaper.