One of the USA's largest refiners, Citgo is a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). As such, it ultimately belongs to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an avowedly anti-American leader who counts Fidel Castro among his closest friends and mocks President Bush as a "genocidal murderer."

The question of Chávez's influence over Citgo was highlighted by the company's recent provision of 25 million gallons of subsidized home-heating oil to poor people in the northeast USA. More than 100,000 households in four states should eventually benefit from the low-cost heating aid.

But some worry that Venezuela's ownership of more than 6% of U.S. refinery capacity gives Chávez, a former paratrooper given to wearing red berets and military fatigues, the power to cripple as well as comfort.

As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated, any disruption to the nation's refining industry instantly increases gas prices. What if Chávez, who periodically threatens to curtail oil shipments to the USA, closed Citgo's refineries?

"He'd only have to do that for 90 days, and he'd destroy our economy," worries Matthew Simmons, a prominent energy investment banker. "He actually has our livelihood in his hands."

Send your reasons why you should be a writer for Gear 6 to: info@gear6.net

As of now all 23 crew members have been air lifted off the Cougar Ace but the fate of the vehicles is unknown. All the cars are secured on the ship before transport but from the angle the ship is sitting at it is unknown whether or not they have remained in place.

[Source: CNN]

What may be the quintessential sports car maker, Porsche, announced plans to seek a controlling interest in the Wolfsburg-based automotive giant Volkswagen group last month, submitting a proposal to German anti-trust authorities to gain clearance to purchase the remaining stock required. Already owning 21.2 percent of VW (Porsche owned 18.5 percent earlier this year but it has purchased most of its 3.4 percent available options in recent months), Porsche and the Peoples Car have had a longstanding and successful relationship, dating all the way back to Ferdinand Porsches design of the Beetle.

Mazda and Spacedog will announce the world debut of the first book in the Revved series of graphic novels at this year's Comic-Con International - home of North America's largest comic book and multi-genre convention - in San Diego, CA. Revved, to be published by Top Cow Productions and developed into a television series by Fox Television Studios, is truly ground-breaking due to the level of integration and collaboration from concept to execution between Spacedog, Top Cow and Mazda. For an exclusive preview of the first 10 pages of Revved: The Beginning, visit www.mazdausa.com/revved.

[Read Full Article]

Here's a policy we'd like to see made standard across every border.

Al-Futtaim Motors has promised full-car service on all Toyota and Lexus vehicles within 59 minutes. The policy started last month on the 15th and will end 59 days later on August 12th. Unfortunately, the service only applies to vehicles within the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and it's not worth it for us to drive that far for faster service. All of the chain's service stations in the UAE have also extended their hours to accomodate customers, and each customer will have a chance to win a Toyota Yaris in a prize draw.

'With the number of vehicles on the road on a steady increase, service centres in the UAE are currently faced with time constraints on car servicing, which in turn affect customers," states Kevin Jones, General Manager of Services. "Keeping our customers first, we have tried to combat that inconvenience by putting to work our years of expertise, the specially designed equipment and tools and Toyota's trained technicians, to offer our customers a full car service in just 59 minutes."

Unfortunately, the cited article doesn't say exactly what's included in a "full-car service", so if it takes these guys 59 minutes to change your oil, check the air pressure in your tires, and attempt to sell you new wiper blades, then they should that art has already been perfected and can be performed in 10 minutes.

[Read Full Article]

[You have to watch this]

The world of Siberian tennis ace Maria Sharapova has changed infinitely since she first went to the US at the age of six.

In those early years, her parents were still struggling to establish themselves in a new country, to the extent that they even couldn't afford a car, the young Sharapova being ferried to tennis lessons on the back of her father's bike.

Toward the end of 2004 Sharapova met the people at Land Rover and was able to get them to organize a Land Rover for her in every city she traveled throughout the world. A little over a year later she signed on as an ambassador for the brand.

[Read Interview with Maria Sharapova]

Rumor has it the Aston Martin V8 Vantage convertible will be called V8 Roadster.

[Source: Car Connection]

With the new Sebring Chrysler hopes to take on the segment leaders Honda, and Toyota with an all new Sebring that blends high style and high technology in a totally redesigned car. Pricing has not been announced but Chrysler has revealed that it will be below the Accord and Camry which both start at $18,000.

Twenty-one of the students squeezed into the old-generation Mini Cooper in just four minutes, with two petite women fitting into the tiny boot. They then stayed in place for 20 seconds, as demanded by the rules of the Guinness Book of Records - and then repeated the stuffy ordeal for a local TV crew which had arrived too late to film them first time round.

The students were, as stated in the rules, all over 1.5m (4ft 11in) tall and were, according to a participant, all 'skinny to average' in build. They beat the previous record, set by 18 British women in 2000 and are now awaiting formal ratification of their result from the Guinness officials, having sent off video footage.

[Source: IOL]

Full Press Release and engine specs after the jump...