Jakarta  - Indonesian police said Wednesday they arrested five Muslim extremists suspected of plotting to attack a major fuel depot in the capital Jakarta.

National police spokesman Brigadier General Sulistyo Ishaq said anti-terror operations also netted bomb-making materials, weapons and ammunition during a raid Tuesday morning at a house in the North Jakarta suburb of Plumpang.

Ishaq said the explosives were a sophisticated version of those used in the 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta.

The five suspects were identified as Rusli Mardani, alias Wahyu Ramadhan, Nurhasani, alias Hasan, Imam Basori, alias Basar, Muntasir and Budiman, he said, adding that a manhunt was continuing for two other suspects.

Berlin - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative political bloc has been given a boost by the government's 480 billion bank (650 billion dollars) rescue plan, a key opinion poll released Wednesday showed.

The weekly Forsa opinion poll, published in Stern magazine and on the RTL television station, showed Merkel's Christian Democrats and their Bavarian-based associate party, the Christian Social Union, gained 2 per cent to hit 37 per cent.

Helsinki - A stamp featuring former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, iss to be issued December 10, the Finnish Philatelic Centre said Wednesday.

The stamp will go on sale the day Athisaari receives his Nobel prize at a ceremony in Oslo. He is being honoured for his mediation efforts in international hotspots.

The stamp with Ahtisaari's portrait will be worth 0.80 euros (1 dollar), for first class mail within Finland and abroad, Liisa Oksanen of the philatelic centre said.

A stamp featuring Ahtisaari, who served as president 1994-2000, was already issued 1997 when he turned 60.

Vienna  - The Austrian government will have to rescue Austrian Airlines AG if the privatisation process fails, Transport Minister Werner Faymann said Wednesday, as he announced that there was one valid bid for the ailing flag carrier.

While Faymann left it open whether there was another, incomplete, offer, the government holding OeIAG said it would stick to its schedule and announce a decision Monday on the sale of its
42.75-per- cent stake in Austrian Airlines.

As the privatisation faced uncertainty, the price of Austrian Airlines shares crashed to 2.9 euros (3.9 dollars) on the Vienna stock market, a decline of 28.9 per cent from yesterday.

Mumbai, Oct 22 : Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has been sent to 14-day judicial custody till November 5 by a Kalyan court in connection with a case of attack against North Indians.

Raj’s lawyer said that they would apply for bail for the MNS chief. Meanwhile, the Railway Police have also reached the Kalyan court with a warrant in Raj’s name.

Washington, Oct 22 : Boys with a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse are four times more likely to use sexually coercive behaviour against an unwilling female partner in later life, according to a new study.

The study led by Erin Casey, a University of Washington Tacoma assistant professor of social work, has found that victims of childhood abuse are at an increased risk of indulging in sexually coercive behaviour as adolescent or young adult.

"Although there can be physical force involved in sexual coercion, it more often involves such tactics as pressure, persuasion, insistence, manipulation and lying to have sex with an unwilling female partner," said Casey.