KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S incoming prime minister Najib Razak needs to take swift action to reverse declining support for the government that has ruled for 51 years, influential ex-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters.

Mr Najib will take power at the end of March and will have to deal with the worst economic downturn since the Asian financial crisis of 1998 as well as rebuilding a party tainted with corruption and still bruised by last year's big election losses.

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia) - MALAYSIA has shed 26,000 jobs since the global financial crisis blew up in September and nearly twice as many workers could lose their jobs this year as struggling manufacturers cut output, a senior government official said.

'It (unemployment) is going to be quite long and badly affected,' Sheikh Yahya Sheikh Mohamed, deputy director of labour in Malaysia's Human Resources Ministry, told Reuters in an interview.

BANGKOK - TOURIST arrivals in Thailand may fall less than feared this year, but tax revenue may be worse than expected due to the severity of the economic slump, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Tuesday.