Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is to make a one-week private trip to seven European and Asian countries to brief his hosts on a constitutional crisis in the country.

Thaksin, who announced a decision not to seek another term after an April 2 snap election, planned to make short stops in Britain, France, Russia, Japan, China and the Philippines from Monday to Sunday.

"I will meet their leaders. They should be keen to know about developments here...They should want to know the facts because reading newspapers must have been confusing," Thaksin told reporters. He did not say which government leaders he would meet during the trip.

After his move to step down, Thaksin handed over day-to-day administrative work to Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya.

Thailand may need to hold a third round of parliamentary elections following boycotts, ballot destruction and an apparently wholesale rejection Sunday of ruling party candidates in the country's insurgency-wracked southern provinces, officials said.

Sunday's election, the country's third in as many weeks, took place in 40 constituencies to fill seats left vacant in earlier polls.

An initial assessment of the balloting showed that in at least 10 constituencies candidates of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party who ran unopposed failed to gain the 20 percent minimum vote needed to win, said Ekachai Warrunprapa, secretary-general of the Election Commission.

(China Daily April 24, 2006)