In response, Shell turned to the crisis limitation exercises, promising inquiries, offering money to rebuild Ogoni schools and hospitals and to clean up pollution.
The other amendment, tabled by the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, was billed as promising an inquiry often described as Leveson part two, in reference to the second half of the press ethics inquiry which the Conservative government had previously announced would not go ahead.
In his letter promising an inquiry, Brown showed the weakness of his "not yet" argument by resorting to preposterous hyperbole: "the whole effort of the government and the armed forces is directed towards supporting the people and government of Iraq".
In February, the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, wrote to independent MP Peter Wellington, now the speaker, promising an inquiry, to be carried out by the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission (QCCC), to investigate "links, if any, between donations to political parties and the awarding of tenders, contracts and approvals".
The government is promising an inquiry into what went wrong.
By promising an inquiry ahead of the fall federal election, the Liberals raised hopes that cold cases would be re-examined.
The paper concludes with recommendations for promising avenues of inquiry for future research on the determinants of domestic violence in developing countries.
Barack Obama has delivered his first public response to allegations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny, describing it as outrageous and promising a thorough inquiry.
Promising an immediate inquiry, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, condemned what he called "thuggish, loutish behaviour by criminals" and conceded his officers had failed to plan for violence.
The record suggests that Justice and the FBI were so uncomfortable investigating a presidential campaign in the weeks and months before an election that they tiptoed around promising lines of inquiry rather than appear to be taking a side.
Promising a comprehensive inquiry into the sport's problems, but stopping short of endorsing a suspension of the racing calendar, McQuaid said he hoped to appoint independent experts to examine everything from athletes' contracts to team managers' backgrounds.
