One such story prompts extraordinary scenes as Humphrys descends, mike in hand, to the BBC newsroom in pursuit of the man making the decision, news supremo James Harding.
The government appeared equally inept last December, when the rape of a young woman by six men in a moving bus shook the nation and prompted extraordinary street protests.
British Gas and the other members of the Karachaganak consortium in Kazakhstan have been losing money hand over fist on the artificially low prices the Russians pay for the little gas that they will take.Avoiding Russia's stranglehold has prompted extraordinary ingenuity.
The complaints prompted an extraordinary rebuke by the council's president, Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay.
The creation of the euro prompted an extraordinary expansion of the financial sector both within the euro area and in nearby banking hubs such as London and Switzerland.
Shola Ameobi's decisive late goal for Newcastle came as a welcome relief for their manager, Alan Pardew, but prompted an extraordinary outburst from his opposite number, Harry Redknapp, against some of his own players' ability and integrity.
In an unrelated scandal that prompted an extraordinary F.B.I. raid on his congressional offices last month, one of New Orleans's congressmen, William Jefferson, has been at the center of a bribery investigation involving telecommunications contracts in Africa.
The request prompted an extraordinary battle between the Paterson administration and leaders of the State Police shortly after Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, took office in 2008, according to court testimony, e-mails and interviews.
The capture of Iraqi territory by Islamic extremists, barely two years since the last American soldiers left, prompted an extraordinary wave of soul-searching in Iraq and the United States, which lost more than thirteen hundred men and women in Anbar Province.
Economic weakness and low interest rates in advanced economies are prompting an extraordinary flow of investment to healthier emerging markets, undermining their exports as their currencies appreciate and creating the risk of destabilizing asset bubbles.
