North Korean leader Kim Jong Il - who shuns air travel - has six luxurious special trains equipped with conference rooms, bedrooms and high-tech communication facilities, a South Korean newspaper says.

Eurostar has selected Italian consultancy Pininfarina to undertake design work for the mid-life refurbishment of the 28 high-speed trains used on services from London to Paris and Brussels.

Pininfarina will be responsible for the full interior design including styling and engineering, as well as new exterior livery.

The Italian designers responsible for styling some the world’s most exotic cars - including Ferraris and Maseratis - has also designed buses, trains and electric vehicles.

A planned luxury train to Tibet has been postponed for the second time in a year, the operator said Monday, adding the global slowdown - not simmering tension in the Himalayan region - was to blame.

Tangula Luxury Trains, which was expected to launch high-class tours from Beijing to Lhasa in April this year, said it would delay the start of package holidays on the world’s highest railway until spring 2010.

“The rescheduling of our official launch was a very recent decision and was taken by our management in light of the current global economic climate,” a Beijing-based spokeswoman told AFP.

China will launch “the most luxurious train in the world” to ply the route from Beijing to Tibet’s capital Lhasa, state media reported Sunday.

However, a ride on the train, which will begin operations on September 1, will be about 20 times more expensive than the ordinary fare of about 2,000 yuan (280 dollars), Xinhua news agency said.

“The interior of the train will be decorated according to the standards of a five-star hotel, making it the most luxurious train in the world,” said Zhu Mingrui, general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Corporation.” Such a train can only seat 96 passengers.

Another proof of India’s growing economic power is the success story of Cox & Kings. The British travel company was founded in 1758 for officers serving in India. The company will be conducting their IPO on the Bombay Stock Exchange next month. In order to make this stock offering possible the UK parent company of Cox & Kings had to be taken over by its Indian subsidiary. The company plans to raise $130 million in the IPO.

What’s even more interesting is that Cox & Kings has entered into a partnership with the state-owned Indian Railways to build a luxury Orient Express-style train. The train will travel from Mumbai and Rajasthan across to Varanasi and Kolkata. Right now India currently has only two luxury trains, and they only travel within single states.

In an article in the Telegraph, Peter Kerka, the chief executive of Cox & Kings said that while seven years ago the bulk of Cox & Kings’ UK business involved shipping passengers from Britain to India. Today more Indian families are taking vacations all over their country. The company plans to increase its travel franchises in India from 15 to 300 by the end of 2008.