Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today he was "glad" that US financier George Soros, with whom he has had a long feud, had been convicted of insider trading by a French court.

Soros was Friday ordered to pay a 2.2 million euro (dollar) fine for his role in the failed takeover of the French bank Societe Generale 14 years ago.

"I'm glad to hear that," Mahathir told reporters during a visit to his parliamentary constituency in Kubang Pasu, Kedah. "It shows that he is not very ethical. He said I'm a menace to my own country he is a menace to the world community."

Financial crisis

Mahathir blamed currency speculators such as Soros for the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, saying they cost developing countries in the region billions of dollars in their pursuit of personal profit.

Mahathir bucked the advice of mainstream economic advisers, including the International Monetary Fund, and rode out the crisis by pegging Malaysia's currency to the US dollar.

Soros made his estimated four billion dollar fortune speculating on the financial markets famously hastening the collapse of sterling during Britain's 1992 crisis over participation in European Monetary Union.

Philanthropic foundations

In recent years he has delegated management of his Quantum Fund to concentrate on his philanthropic foundations which operate in 30 countries around the world with the self-proclaimed goal of "transforming closed societies into open ones."

In books and articles he has shown himself disenchanted with the world's existing financial systems, which he calls "dehumanising", and has come out in support of the so-called Tobin tax on international capital transfers in order to pay for development in poorer countries. AFP