A recent survey found out that 82% of the calls made to Talian Nur Hotline (Talian Nur) were prank calls.

The finding was revealed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development Minister, Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen.

Surprisingly enough, a further look discovered that majority of such calls were made by children. The number of prank calls increased during the weekends and escalated to higher level during the school holidays.

Lack of guidance, education and monitoring were cited as the possible reasons of the children’s behaviour.

The Talian Nur Hotline was launched in late 2007 to as a mean to render assistance to public who are subject to social injustice such as abuse, welfare negligence, domestic violence and mental disturbance. It operates on 24-hour basis, where users can get in touch with experienced hotline personnel by dialing 15999.

The Talian Nur Hotline recently received a commendable review, after a reporter from The Star Newspaper, who made a ‘dummy’ call to assess the quality of the service by the operator discovered that the advice rendered by the officer on the receiving was apparently helpful. It concluded that the hotline was not merely a lip service and that the person attending calls from the public was competent and responsive. Later, a story, Talian Nur Hotline Well Managed, was published in the newspaper on 22 July 2008, which started to attract more and more callers.

Prank calls have been a major distress for many of the public service departments in Malaysia. Apart from Talian Nur, the emergency hotline service, 999 has also been blatantly violated with irresponsible citizens taking advantage of the free telephony service meant for alerting the authority on emergency. In 2007 alone, more than 90% calls made to the 999 number were eventually identified as prank calls.

How much salary a top accountant can earn?

John Connolly, who is considered one of the smartest accountants in Britain, receives a total salary of £5.7 million (US$10.7 million) this year. The amount equals to US$890,000 per month.

John is also one of the top bosses in Deloitte UK, holding a portfolio as the Chief Executive and a senior partner for the accounting firm. The £5.7 million comprises of basic salary, plus the profit sharing.

Many firms in various industries including financial, legal and consulting adopt the practice of offering partnership to their long serving or high performing employees as a mean to reward their contribution, and Deloitte is no stranger to the exercise. Its UK operation has more than 600 partners, with each averaging about £970,000 in annual pay.

Every year, Deloitte recruit more than 1,000 top graduates, both local and foreign graduates, for their operation across Britain. The firm is currently the second largest ‘big four’ audit firm by revenue behind PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and ahead of Ernst & Young and KPMG.

UNIMAS (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak) will be introducing new courses to attract more foreign students enrolling into the institution.

It will also make effort to extend a broader reach and include students who finished their SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia).

As a start, a new degree in chemical engineering specialization will be launched in the beginning of the next academic session. It will be followed by a few more courses in finance and economy.

On top of introducing new courses, UNIMAS will also be collaborating with Nong Lam University of Vietnam to launch degree courses in biotechnology and information technology, beginning next year.

SPM leavers may also get a chance to enter the university as it is also planning to introduce basic courses in science and tourism.

At the moment, UNIMAS is finalizing intake for more than 100 students from Chinese to start various courses with the university. The institution accept more than 1,000 students every year, with over 1,500 students received their degree scroll in the last year’s academic year.

Presently, UNIMAS offers both undergraduate and postgraduate programs, offering courses in economics, business, engineering, computer science and IT, applied and creative arts, social sciences, resource science and technology and medicine & health sciences. Its Masters and Doctorate courses can be taken on full time or part time basis.

15 highest paid young CEOs (U50) in the United States, as recently published by Forbes.

1. Nabeel Gareeb

Age: 43
Company: MEMC Electronic Materials
Salary: $79.6 million

2. Jen-Hsun Huang

Age: 45
Company: Nvidia
Salary: $45.9 million

3. Marc Holliday

Age: 41
Company: SL Green
Salary: $30 million

4. Jonathan Schwartz

Age: 42
Company: SUN Microsystems
Salary: $13.5 million

5. Shantanu Narayen

Age: 44
Company: Adobe System
Salary: $12 million

6. Michael T. Fries

Age: 45
Company: Liberty Global
Salary: $11 million

7. Thomas J. Quinlan III

Age: 45
Company: RR Donnelley & Sons
Salary: $6.5 million

8. Peter R Huntsman

Age: 45
Company: Huntsman
Salary: $5.4 million

9. H Lawrence Culp Jr.

Age: 45
Company: Danaher
Salary: $5.3 million

10. Paul Varga

Age: 44
Company: Brown-Forman
Salary: $5.3 million

11. Dara Khosrowshahi

Age: 39
Company: Expedia
Salary: $4.9 million

12. Robert Niblock

Age: 45
Company: Lowe’s
Salary: $4.6

13. Gregory Case

Age: 45
Company: Aon
Salary: $4.5 million

14. August Busch IV

Age: 44
Company: Anheuser-Busch
Salary: $4 million

15. Francisco D’Souza

Age: 39
Company: Cognizant Technology
Salary: $3.7 million