Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah

We live in a country where the law has it that an accused is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. What more if the accused has been labelled the accused just because investigators are grasping at straws trying to justify their own inabilities and failings in a case that is classified a crime merely because there seems to be no other conclusion...or is there? Is the real truth being concealed by parties yet unknown and unseen?

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was the man at the helm of MH370 when the plane disappeared without a trace. To many at the time, it was so easy to be smug and insensitive to point to pilot suicide or complicity. All others in the plane by default became victims. My own tongue in cheek postulation was that in an absence of a wreckage, extra-terrestrials took them. Indeed, this may well be the only chance all on board could still be alive as opposed to the conspiracy theories that surfaced; dead man tells no tales! Then again, UFO!?!

It was so easy to overlook the fact that the man was living a life; as a father, a son, a husband, an uncle, an in-law, a colleague and likely, an endearing friend to many who continue to miss him. The following is a poignant video compiled by such Friends of Captain Zaharie MH370 that puts matters in perspective. Please watch and share.

Winning GE13 Must Surely Be About Creativity...

Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!...

Cancer Con?

Found these two articles on the Net. Chemotherapy is just another colossal con-job! The statistics itself speak. The following are excerpts:
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Improving Health of Cancer Patients - July 16, 2010

Richard Loyd, Ph.D.

It is my opinion that in general, cancer is not a medical emergency that requires immediate invasive and toxic interventions. It is a degenerative condition that requires improving of health. There are medical emergencies that require the best medical help you can find. Car accidents with catastrophic injuries or life-threatening burns are examples. In those cases, you need the best emergency room you can find. Cancer can become a medical emergency. If the digestive tract is completely blocked by a tumor so that passage of material is impossible, emergency surgery may be needed. If breathing is becoming impossible due to a tumor blocking the respiratory tract, emergency intervention is appropriate. If a tumor in the brain has grown to the point where there is pressure that is causing damage, surgery may be advisable. It also possible that medical treatment for cancer will cause enough damage that more medical treatment will be required. But in general, cancer is not a condition that requires treatments that actually worsen health.

Many people are trying to recover from cancer with non-toxic therapies. This is an attainable goal and it is often achieved. Patients often spend a lot more money than necessary and take huge numbers of pills, many of which do not have a direct bearing on their problem and may even block progress. More may not be better!

People sometimes tell me that they were perfectly healthy until the cancer suddenly appeared. I point out that they were not really healthy. They had viral infections, toxic metals, parasites, infections in tooth sockets, radiation stress, bowel toxicity, chemical toxicity and probably mold toxicity. There may have been a metabolic imbalance. In other words, the things that cause cancer. The things that have to go away so they can get well.

Anyone with a condition that normally requires the services of a physician is urged to consult one. Ask your physician if this program can be used along side whatever medical treatment you decide on. This is not a "cure" for cancer. It is a method of becoming healthy. If you are considering chemotherapy or radiation, ask your oncologist if the suggested therapy ever cures your kind of cancer. If the answer is "no", then THINK ABOUT THIS! Of those who depend on chemotherapy for survival (in other words, the surgeon "did not get it all"), the five year survival rate is only 2.1%. For some cancers the rate is better, but for some types of cancer, it is 0%.



Does this make you feel like chemotherapy is a cruel fraud in most cases? If you do not get that impression yet, please study the chart some more!

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How Much Is Life Worth: Cetuximab, Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer, and the $440 Billion Question
By Tito Fojo, Christine Grady

Affiliations of authors: Medical Oncology Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute (TF), and Department of Bioethics, The Clinical Center (CG), National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD . Correspondence to: Tito Fojo, MD, PhD, Medical Oncology Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bldg 10, Rm 12 N226, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892 (e-mail: tfojo@helix.nih.gov ). See “Notes” following “References.” DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djp177 Published by Oxford University Press 2009.


The spiraling cost of cancer care, in particular the cost of cancer therapeutics that achieve only marginal benefits, is under increasing scrutiny. Although health-care professionals avoid putting a value on a life, our limited resources require that society address what counts as a benefit, the extent to which cost should factor in deliberations, and who should be involved in these decisions. Professional societies, such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology, government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, and insurance companies should be involved. However, no segment of society is better qualified to address these issues than the oncology community. Oncologists must offer clear guidance for the conduct of research, interpretation of results, and prescription of chemotherapies. We review recent drug approvals and clinical trials and comment on their relevance to the issue of the spiraling cost of oncology therapeutics. We suggest some standards that would serve as a starting point for addressing these issues.

The year 2008 was one with few major breakthroughs in cancer treatment. A highlight of the war on cancer at the annual meeting in 2008 of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) was the reporting of the results of a multi-institutional European trial in which cetuximab was added to cisplatin and vinorelbine to treat patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The overall survival (OS) advantage from adding cetuximab was 1.2 months (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.871, P = .04). This extra time was accompanied by a substantially higher rate of febrile neutropenia in those receiving cetuximab, along with higher frequencies of acne-like rash, diarrhea, and infusion-related reactions. Unfortunately, there were no systematic quality-of-life assessments reported to objectively determine the tolerability of the agent compared with conventional treatment.

Did the results of this trial constitute a breakthrough? According to the researchers, “Cetuximab added to a platinum-based chemotherapy sets a new standard for the first-line treatment of patients with non–small cell lung cancer”. And the ASCO press briefing asserted, “these findings are likely to have a significant impact on the care of patients with these types of cancer”. But the only reasonable conclusion is that a magic anticancer bullet aimed at an important target missed by a wide margin. Nevertheless, the presentation raised once again an even more pressing and important set of issues: What counts as a benefit in cancer treatment? How much should cost factor into deliberations? Who should decide? As oncologists, we cannot go on without answering these questions. The moral character of our specialty depends on the answers.

Drug (brand name)	Regimen	Dose†	Amount needed†,‡	Cost per milligram or cost per tablet	Total cost‡	Increase in OS‡
Cetuximab (Erbitux)	Loading: 400 mg/m2; maintain: 250 mg/m2/wk	Loading: 600 mg; maintain: 375 mg	6975 mg	$11.52/mg	$80 352	1.2 months
Bevacizumab (Avastin)	10 mg/kg every 14 d	600 mg every 14 d	13 200 mg	$6.88/mg	$90 816	1.5 months§
Erlotinib (Tarceva)	150 mg daily	150 mg/d; 1 tablet per day	112 tablets	$140.64 per tablet	$15752	10 days
Sorafenib (Nexavar)	400 mg twice a day	800 mg/d; 4 tablets per day	692 tablets	$49.67 per tablet	$34373	2.7 months

* Costs from Red Book 2008 (Drug Topics Red Book) by Harold Cohen. PFS = progression-free survival. OS = Overall Survival
† Calculated for a 60 kg/1.5 m 2 patient.
‡ For the regimen cited, administered as in the study cited, until the time of median disease progression as reported in the published study.
§ Not statistically significant.


Read more here

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You be the judge...ask an oncologist to undergo chemo when has cancer.

Dr Mahathir's View, Dr Dzul's View. But What Do Most Malays See?

Why do I get the feeling that more and more people just want Dr Mahathir to shut up? More often than not, he now sounds like a small kid throwing tantrums but he is actually a senile, cantankerous old man bent on seeking lost glory. We seem to be getting a peek into what will be considered his legacy in the ensuing pages of history...it does not look as good as he may want it. Are his patients or is it patience that is running thin?

Please read:

Mahathir’s intriguing rhetoric of Malaysia-belongs-to-Malays

FEBRUARY 5, 2011 by Dr. Dzul
* Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad is a member of Pakatan Rakyat’s secretariat and MP for Kuala Selangor. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist first posted in The Malaysianinsiders.

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FEB 4 — You have asked me to write on a difficult subject and answer a thorny question especially coming close to a general election and after the defeat in Tenang.

It’s alright with Tun Mahathir and for that matter even with PM Najib.They could say the darnest things and yet could later turn and twist to escape unscratched and invariably scot-free. Not with us, lesser mortals, we will be criminalised especially by none other than people like you, the media.

I will say my piece, nonetheless, without fear or favour again. This is the most dangerous part of it. On the back of a perceived dwindling of the Malay support, my audacious attempt at taking the bull-by-the-horn type of response might not concur well with conventional Malay wisdom in politics.

Being very objective, as I usually do, I’ve no qualm to again concur with anyone, that this nation, originally, has a lot more to do with Malays more than Indians or Chinese.

Since time immemorial, Western chroniclers have described this part of the world as Malay Archipelago while the Greek geographers, dated a lot earlier, described the Peninsular Malaya as the Golden Chersonese as gold is found here to this day.

That is as much as I would like to talk about the “Malayness” of this beloved country of ours at this critical juncture of our much embattled nation. Going beyond, which I very well could do, will embroil me in an unending claims and counter-claim, a debate I don’t wish to be part of.

But the most paradoxical thing about this debate is “Why Mahathir is insisting on this dialectic or divide, when he should be openly supporting Najib, ostensibly his protégé, on his 1-Malaysia rhetoric”.

This is the crux of the matter, the bone of contention and the climax of hypocrisy of the living Umno elites namely the combination of Najib and Mahathir!

Frankly, this is their drama or soap-opera in securing power and putting the Pakatan at bay. It’s a double-game of sort, a double-speak in its highest order. It is simply a case of downright greed – wanting to eat the cake and keeping it. It might have worked before, during lesser enlightened time of the Old Politics, but no longer now under the rubric of the New Politics!

Mahathir’s rhetoric that this country belongs to the Malays ie others are less-than-equal as Malays are more-equal-than others, ensures Umno will endear and entrench further the ‘gullible’ Malay support.

Meanwhile Najib’s 1-Malaysia is meant to hoodwink the ‘gullible’ Chinese and Indians (of MCA-Gerakan and MIC members and well-wishers respectively) into believing that they are equally Malaysians, as this country also belongs to them, apparently oblivious of the fact that are relegated as ‘second-class’ in the strictest sense of Mahathir’s worldview.

What a farce and a hypocrisy!

Be that as it may, PAS/Pakatan is not into such game and publicity stunt.

I for one, would like to believe that the issue of the special position of Malays and the (natives) bumiputera of the states of Sabah and Sarawak, must be read together with equal emphasis, with the legitimate interests of other communities ias enshrined in the Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.

That’s perhaps the greatest safeguard for all! Pakatan and PAS have no problem with that at all. In all conviction, this has become one of our ‘cardinal’ pillars of our Common Policy Framework (CPF). That’s the greatest security to Malays while simultaneously upholding the legitimate rights of all races.

Malays must not succumb into Umno’s machination that Pakatan would forsake their special position for fear of the DAP and the other ethnic groups. Umno is evidently preying on Malays’ fear.

Yes, we are also unlike Umno in the BN, acting as Tuan and Boss to others and at whims and fancy, dispensing orders for others to toe their line. On the contrary Pakatan’s CPF, achieved through consensus, upholds the cardinal articles of 153, 152 and article 3, without much qualms and misgivings by all our partners. Being a member of the Secretariat, I say it again in full conviction and earnestness. I see the undivided commitment and relentless effort by all.

Back to the argument, it is all the better, as it’s the ordained role of the Constitutional Monarch, who must see to that all these communities be accorded their special position and interest, as it is the responsibility of the yang DiPertuan Agong as enshrined in the article 153 of the FC.

It is my conviction that only in a government that is committed to a fair play, that encourages the true spirit and practice of Equality, that respect affirmative actions where it is deemed necessary on a needs-basis (and not abusing it), that is foremost in enhancing true entrepreneurship and competitiveness and debunks all forms of race-base politics and religious bigotry, will we actually see the uplifting and realising of the bigger agenda of genuine reform and nation rebuilding in a complex plural society like ours.

It is ingrained in the rhetoric of Mahathir’s Malaysia-belongs-to-Malays that has in fact encouraged the racial slurs of politicians and a few Umno-inclined bureaucrats alike. It is this ‘supremacy (Ketuanan) worldview’ that continues to disable Najib’s 1-Malaysia and triggers its penchant for flip-flopping, hence making it sounds shallow and hollow while stifling genuine reform and change in this nation.

The rakyat must be single-minded on debunking hypocrisy and in not allowing unscrupulous double-speaking and self-serving politicians, both past and present, from both divides, to further divide us in any divisive diabolical design of race-based politics, religious bigotry, rampant cronyism and endemic corruption and wasteful extravaganza that we could ill-afford.

Isn’t Mahathir-Najib’s Umno creating the very thing they purport to fear? That is creating ‘divisive’ plans and sustaining power through well contrived divisive strategies. Isn’t that the accusation of Mahathir and Najib towards Tok Guru Nik Aziz and Anwar of dividing the Malays?

What has changed in 1 Malaysia, fellow Malaysians?

De Facto; De Factee? De Fuckto; De Fucktee?

What is a de facto leader in a democracy? Wikipedia says: De facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established".
 
So we are told that Anwar Ibrahim is the de facto leader of PKR. That means he was not voted in as the leader but is actually the leader of PKR. What does that make democracy? It makes the democracy that PKR sings about, de fuckto! The PKR President is Wan Azizah and she sleeps with the de fuckto PKR leader, Anwar for obvious reasons. So is she the de fucktee President? 

What is the point of having a national internal polls when ultimately even the President answers to a de facto shadow?

Anyway, PKR "de factee" Ezam Nor finally makes some sense below. Be sure you watch the Popteevee "Effing Show" segment too.


PKR ruckus: 'Anwar must take full blame'
SAT, 30 OCT 2010 11:07
By Hawkeye

GUA MUSANG: Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is squarely to be blamed for the present ruckus in PKR because he does not want to assume the party's president post.

His former confidant, Senator Ezam Mohd Nor, said Anwar's indecisiveness about formally taking over the party's reins has sparked a jostling for top posts within PKR.

"Yes! if you ask me, I think Anwar has to take the blame. He has to be accountable for the current infighting in PKR. I doubt the party can close ranks as there are simply too many personalities with a different agenda and diverse political ideologies," Ezam said on the sidelines of the Galas state by-election campaign.

The former PKR Youth head claimed that Anwar's sole ambition was to become prime minister so much so that the latter has become blinded to the spat among the various leaders as they jockeyed for positions in PKR's national internal polls.

Anwar only sees PKR as a short-term strategy as his ultimate goal is to become prime minister, Ezam said, adding that the former deputy prime minister could join DAP or PAS just to realise his aim.

He has set a bad precedent such as when he went around claiming that by Sept 16, 2008, the Barisan Nasional-led federal government would be toppled and Pakatan Rakyat would be able to take over, Ezam said.

This has caused PKR leaders, including newcomers such as Pakatan coordinator Zaid Ibrahim, to fall victim to excessive jostling in the quest for top posts, as the other leaders believe that PKR can take over Putrajaya now, Ezam said.

"Anwar should put a stop to it by claiming the president's post to indicate that he is sincere in leading the party and to stop showing favoritism to vice-president Azmin Ali.

“Azmin is an ambitious politician so he does not care who he steps on, including his fellow PKR comrades. I saw this coming just weeks after Anwar was released from jail (after his Sodomy I trial)."

Ezam claimed he tried to warn other leaders but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

"I quit out of frustration as I saw PKR was losing its original ideology. It was only interested in short-term gains at the expense of its future."

Today, many leaders in the party are only hankering after positions while the grassroots members are a restless lot as Anwar has apparently poisoned their minds with a lust for immediate power at the expense of good governance, Ezam said.

Ketuanan Apa Ini? Just A Bunch Of Crooks But WE Voted Them In Everytime!

This was in the Asia Sentinel. Read it and puke! Viva NEP!!! 


UMNO's Corporate Cornucopia
Written by Our Correspondent

WEDNESDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2010

The House that Mahathir Built
How Malaysia's companies funneled money into the country's biggest political party

In the 1980s and 1990s, Halim Saad and Tajudin Ramli were two of Malaysia's brightest stars, picked by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to lead the country's ethnic Malays onto the national stage as exemplars of a new Bumiputera business culture that would catch up with the ethnic Chinese who had dominated commerce as long as Malaysia had been in existence.

When Mahathir took office, insiders say, his plan was to create a cadre of 100 super-rich bumis who in turn would help rural Malays into prosperity under a konsep payung, or umbrella concept routed through the United Malays National Organization, much the way he envisioned driving the country into industrialization through massive projects. But greed intervened. Once the privileged got rich, there was little incentive to share it with the kampongs, the Malay rural villages. Many of the companies eventually collapsed and are being supported by government institutions such as Kazanah Nasional, the country's sovereign investment fund, or the Employee Provident Fund.

Although the Umno connection was widely assumed during Mahathir's 22 year reign as prime minister, today a flock of explosive court documents filed in different Kuala Lumpur courts appear to be breaking open conclusively the open secret that Tajudin and Halim and others were essentially front men for the United Malays National Organization, the country's biggest ethnic political party and part of a class of rentier businessmen who became known as Umnoputras, a play on the word Bumiputera, or native Malaysians, predominantly ethnic Malays.

Nor were they alone. Others included Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary, one of Malaysia's richest men, as well as Yahaya Ahmad, who headed Mahathir's national car project and who tragically was killed with his wife in a helicopter crash, and Samsuddin Abu Hassan, introduced by Mahathir to the government of Nelson Mandela but who had to flee South Africa after being accused of misappropriating millions and evading South African debts totaling about R50 million (US$7.233 million at current exchange rates). Samsuddin left behind his glamorous wife, Melleney Venessa Samsudin, along with a failed Durban bank, and returned to Malaysia.

Samsudin ultimately ended up on the board of directors of Mitrajaya Holdings Bhd., another Umno-linked company that has played a significant role in major national projects including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, KL's Light Rail Transit System, the CyberJaya Flagship Zone and numerous other projects.

At least 23 of Malaysia's biggest companies (see list below) appear to have been vehicles for Umno to siphon off vast amounts of money in government contracts as Mahathir's plans went awry. The companies and the people who run them are so hard-wired into Umno, the government and its investment arms that de-linking them would probably destroy the party. That in effect makes a mockery of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's widely publicized speech in July in which he promised to root corruption out of his party.

Much of the ownership appears to have been channeled through a mysterious company that emerged in 1993 to stage an RM800 million management buyout of a major chunk of Malaysia's media including the New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd and TV3. Realmild already owned a controlling interest in Malaysian Resources Corporation Bhd, which got the contract to develop the massive Kuala Lumpur Sentral transport hub. It also acquired ownership of the Labuan and Sabah Shipyards, which supply the Malaysian Navy, as well as Redicare and Medivest, which were awarded lucrative contracts to supply medical supplies to government hospitals.

In September, Syed Anwar Jamalullail, the brother to the Sultan of Perlis, and others testified in a tangled court battle in a Kuala Lumpur High Court that Daim Zainuddin, the prime minister's close associate, often told Malay businessmen to act as nominees in the management of Malaysia's top companies. The long-running suit was launched five years ago in2005 by Khalid Ahmad, a former Realmild director, who alleged he had been cheated out of a RM10 million payment for five percent of Realmild's shares by Abdul Rahman, thought to be the beneficial owner.

According to the testimony, Abdul Rahman paid out the RM10 million but later reneged after he learned from Mahathir that the shares actually belonged to UMNO. The trustees for Realmild in fact were Mahathir himself as well as former Berita Harian Group Editor Ahmad Nazri Abdullah, New Straits Times Group Editor Abdul Kadir Jasin and Mohd Noor Mutalib. Another witness, Ahmad Nazri, said in a deposition that he held the majority share of 80 percent in Realmild, although 70 percent of the shares were actually in trust for Mahathir.

The companies others ran included Faber Group Bhd, a member of the UEM Group, now involved in integrated facilities management and property solutions sectors; KUB Malaysia Bhd. A holding company dealing in information, communications & technology, property, engineering & construction and food related industries.

The companies have been involved a wide variety of activities including media, property development, construction, toll roads, hospital equipment, logistics and distribution, cellular telephony and other businesses. What they had in common was that most of them benefited from government contracts doled out by the Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition that has controlled Malaysia since its inception as a country. The other thing they had in common was that at some point most of them were mismanaged into financial trouble of one kind or another and had to be bailed out or bought out by the government.

Realmild unloaded Malaysian Resources Corporation Bhd onto the Employee Provident Fund in late 2005 as part settlement for an outstanding Rm500 million loan. Putera Capital Bhd, is threatened with bankruptcy. It formerly owned the Putra World Trade Center, Umno's headquarters, which rents out office space to businesses. UEM Builders Bhd, an offshoot of United Engineers Malaysia (UEM), along with UEM World Bhd, was dumped onto Kazanah Nasional, the investment holding arm of the government and the government's strategic investment vehicle.

Kazanah Nasional now also owns PLUS, which held the tollway contract for the national north-south highway, as well as Pharmaniaga, a former UEM subsidiary dealing in hospital supply and other services. Court documents show that MAS, then the state-owned flag carrier, was taken over and privatized by Tajudin Ramli only to lose an estimated RM8 billion (US$2.77 billion at current exchange rate), with a major part of that being funneled into a Frankfurt, Germany cargo logistics company whose directors were closely connected to Tajudin.

According to the website Malaysia Today, Tajudin's lawyers revealed that Tajudin had only been a front man for Umno and that Umno "not only has to protect him from prosecution but that they also had to ensure that the government bought back the shares at the same price that they were sold to him although the shares were only worth a portion of the real value."

Other depositions made available in recent weeks have listed a long series of documents detailing misdoings in UEM/Renong, once headed by Halim Saad, which has long been accused of looting the government treasury through vastly overpriced construction contracts. Halim told the press in September that he had left the UEM/Renong board in 2001, saying authorities wanted Kazanah to take it over "to prevent a systemic risk to the banking system in Malaysia and to enable a sustained restructuring of the group."

UEM itself is still at it. The government-linked company was given the contract to build a second bridge from the mainland to the northern city of Penang at a price estimated in 2007 at Rm2.7 billion. It has since climbed to RM4.3 billion without figuring in a variety of ancillary costs including compensation for fishermen and project development costs of RM285 million, with the total now nearing RM5 billion.

Other documents show how completely the country's press was in the thrall of UMNO. Media Prima Bhd, a listed company, apparently took over the ownership from Realmild of TV3, 8TV, ntv7 and TV9 as well as 90 percent of the equity in The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Bhd, which publishes three national newspapers; the New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro. It also owns three radio networks, Fly FM, Hot FM and One FM. Other cross media interests of Media Prima include content creation; event and talent management.

It also owns outdoor advertising companies Big Tree Outdoor Sdn Bhd, UPD Sdn Bhd, Right Channel Sdn Bhd, Kurnia Outdoor Sdn Bhd and Jupiter Outdoor Network Sdn Bhd. It is online through a digital communications and broadcasting subsidiary, Alt Media, with the Lifestyle Portal gua.com.my and the newly launched TonTon, a cutting-edge video portal with HD-ready quality viewing experience that offers the individualism of customized content and interactivity of social networking.


The companies:

• Faber Group Bhd
• KUB Malaysia Bhd
• Malaysian Resources Corp. Bhd
• Media Prima Bhd
• New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
• Putera Capital Bhd
• UEM Builders Bhd
• UEM World Bhd
• PLUS
• Pharmaniaga
• Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd (partly owned by Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, another Mahathir crony and one of Malaysia's 10 richest men according to the Forbes List
• Renong Bhd
• Realmild Sdn Bhd
• Mahkota Technologies (Also a partnership with Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary
• Malaysian Airlines
• Celcom
• Malaysian Helicopter Service
• Temasek Padu Sdh Bhd
• Sabah Shipyard
• Labuan Shipyard
• Redicare
• Medivest