A South African businessman offered the player a huge sum of money to take on commitments that would rule him out of the tour.
Hedegaard's manoeuvring also forced China to acknowledge that it will take on commitments on an equal legal footing to developed countries.
The worry for developing countries is that the less that rich countries do, the more they themselves will have to take on commitments post-2020.
But they made it clear they were not eager to draw the government into the insurance business and take on commitments for untold billions.
One cannot take on commitments such as PhD students under these circumstances".
Which brings us to Johnson's Mistake #3: Taking on too many commitments that take you away from your research.
More than one senator asked the Treasury chief about media estimates that the government had now taken on outlays, commitments or loan guarantees of a staggering $7.8 trillion.
But in the absence of a real government, we never asked the question, 'So how do we do this?' " But as the military budget declines, some ranking officers are wary about taking on new commitments, even ones that involve protecting Americans.
This should include taking on binding commitments to cut their emissions and using the carbon markets to mobilise capital on a large scale to finance their low carbon transformation.
In many ways, NATO has been drifting since its post-cold-war enlargement, taking on major commitments like Afghanistan without a serious debate over the alliance's strategy and purpose.
While Sandy and Hedley were wrestling over the question of whether to bring him onto the staff, Alan was taking on serious commitments with Townsend-Greenspan.
