FORMER Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad, the leader who steered Malaysia through the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, said that the current global turmoil is far from ending and will soon spread to the region's export-dependent economies, in an interview with Bloomberg News.

'The worst is not over yet. We do not even understand what is happening,' Tun Dr Mahathir, who stepped down as prime minister in 2003, said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday in Putrajaya, Malaysia. 'Asian countries are going to feel the pinch of a world where the market has collapsed.'

Global leaders are starting to acknowledge the worst still lies ahead for their economies as stocks and commodities plunge, forcing a growing number of countries to shore up their battered banking systems.

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