SIB's proposal to offer the public a single telephone help-line for calls on everything from motor insurance to pensions.

ECONOMIST: Financial regulation

Into the vacuum leapt Lula, after he concluded that a telephone call from the president asking for advice was really a cry for help.

ECONOMIST: Brazil's president

Many of these early silent films involved a damsel-in-distress telephone operator calling for help in the midst of a robbery.

WSJ: "Disconnect": From Talkies to Texties

The battered telephone companies, long an elusive market for Cisco, could use this kind of help.

FORBES: Technology

"We will give a more specialised phone service for customers whose affairs can be resolved over the telephone, and face-to-face help to those who need it, visiting them at a place convenient to them, saving them both travel and time, " said Lin Homer, HMRC chief executive.

BBC: Tax: HMRC to close all of its 281 Enquiry Centres

Her government said last week that it would host an international conference to help the Palestinians prepare for statehood, and she spoke to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas by telephone before she left Germany last week.

BBC: NEWS | Middle East | Merkel tells Knesset of 'shame'