Munich  - The Toyota Prius hybrid continues to lead the Eco-Test rankings conducted annually by Germany's automobile association (ADAC) which measured fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in a special test.

None of the 800 cars tested achieved the maximum number of five stars. The ADAC says its test is more realistic than the fuel consumption tests conducted under laboratory conditions by the car makers. The Eco-Test takes the cars on motorways, stop-and-go city traffic while the air conditioning systems run.

Hamburg - As the credit crisis slices into global car sales, some of the world's most exclusive automobile manufacturers are weathering the storm with aplomb.

Their customers are people so super-rich that the economic downtown dents neither their income or desire to own the most expensive luxury vehicles money can buy.

While former financial high-flyers struggle to offload their BMW and Mercedes-Benz limousines, elitist British maker Aston Martin based in rural Warwickshire reports a surge of interest in high-end models.

Cologne, Germany  - A modified Audi A4 B7 quattro has achieved a world speed record of 327.2 kilometres per hour running on an alternative bio-gas fuel processed from grass, the German technical testing authority (TUeV) Rhineland has announced.

"We wanted to give the debate on alternative fuels impetus by demonstrating that driving fun and ecology are not mutually exclusive," said Dr Stefan Behrning, who oversaw the project, conducted on a test track at Papenburg in northwestern Germany.

Hamburg  - Smart car-to-car communication will one day make traffic jams obsolete and significantly improve road safety. That is the vision of several major car makers who recently presented the technology under realistic driving conditions at a test track in Germany.

Several cars, motorcycles and a truck could be seen communicating with each other at the Opel test track in Dudenhofen Germany based on wireless WLAN technology.

Nairobi/Kigali, Rwanda - Rwanda on Tuesday expelled the German ambassador to Kigali and called back its own ambassador from Berlin as anger over the arrest of a Rwandan official accused of involvement in the assassination of a former Rwandan president escalated.

Rose Kabuye, chief of protocol to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was arrested on Sunday in Frankfurt on a French warrant.

She is suspected of being involved in the assassination of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana - an act that sparked the 1994 genocide of up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Berlin - The German government rejected Tuesday a plea from General Motors (GM), the world's biggest carmaker, for targeted aid for German car factories.

At the same time, an existing government plan to subsidize car sales came unravelled, suggesting that the final form of Berlin's aid to the industry was still in play.

With US-based GM teetering, the multinational's German arm, Opel, had earlier written to Chancellor Angela Merkel requesting she push harder for a 40-billion-euro