Girl With a Purpose (GWAP)

Tiger Woods Feels Pinch of Global Financial Crisis

Tiger woods
Originally uploaded by scubaeddie32

Even Tiger Woods is feeling some effect of the global economic crisis.

One of his sponsors, General Motors (GM), announced on Monday that they were ending their sponsorship of the prolific  golfer.

The 9-year sponsorship deal was worth USD $10 million per year to Tiger and was slated to end, next year.

As part of the deal, Tiger took part in television commercials for the budget-priced range of cars - a source of mirth in some circles because Woods is reported to drive a Porsche. Ironically, during the nine years he has been promoting Buick its sale have reportedly fallen by 58% - more than any other GM brand. (Source: Article, "GM ends 9-year endorsement deal with Tiger Woods", by Tom Krisher, TheGuardian.co.uk)

General Motors, one of the "big 3" automakers in the US, has fallen on hard times.

According to Yahoo Finance:

"GM shares closed at 4.36 dollars on Friday, November 10,2008, down from more than 30 dollars a year ago.

The US automaker reported steep quarterly losses and warned it would run out of cash in the first half of next year and appealed to the US government for help to save it from collapse.

The company announced a third-quarter loss of 2.5 billion dollars and said it had burned through another 6.9 billion of cash during the three-month period."

This is compared to the $1.6 billion third-quarter loss it made  in 2007.

According to The Guardian newspaper:

Senior managers from GM travelled to Washington DC last week to ask Congress for a $25 billion (£16.5bn) loan in order to stave off the possibility of bankruptcy, although a spokesman for the company said the decision to sever its links with Woods at this time was "purely coincidental".

He said: "This decision is the result of discussions that started earlier in the year and the timing of this agreement with these other activities is purely coincidental." Last week, Buick announced it was also ending its arrangement to provide courtesy cars for players and officials at PGA Tour events in the US.

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Tiger Woods earned USD $120 million last year from sponsorship deals, according to Golf Digest magazine.

In all, he has made approximately $1 billion over his years as a pro-golfer.

Gillian

Sources Include:

1) Article, "Try not to cry as Woods becomes credit crunch victim", by Lawrence Donegan, TheGuardian.co.uk, November 25, 2008

2) Article, "GM ends 9-year endorsement deal with Tiger Woods", by Tom Krisher, TheGuardian.co.uk, November 24,2008

3) Article, "GM shares plunge after analyst sees them hitting zero", Yahoo Finance News, November 10,2008

4) GM's Quarter3 Earnings Release, GM.com's Investor Relations Page, November 7,2008

Jamaican Parliamentarians Keep Hanging on the Books!

Courtroom One Gavel
Originally uploaded by Joe Gratz

Please see our post, here, for a background to this post.

Jamaican Parliamentarians finally made a decision re capital punishment this afternoon, by voting to retain hanging on Jamaica's legal books.

In all there were 59 votes...

With 36 voting for the retention of hanging...

15 against....

and 8 absentees.

Well Jamaicans for Justice, the Jamaican Human Rights group that is against hanging based on the poor investigative capacity of the Jamaican Police Force, was very disappointed with the verdict.

It's head,  Dr.Carolyn Gomes, claimed that during the voting session and upon its completion, some Parliamentarians behaved juvenily and  lacked the seriousness required to vote on this matter.

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Well, let' see if this decision will change anything where crime in Jamaica is concerned.

If we can't successfully catch criminals and our solution rate for crime is less than 10%..It means that 9 out of 10 people who murder, will get away.

If witnesses won't come forward for fear of victimization of themselves and their families by the accused and their cronies...it means that our so-called justice system will fall apart.

We have to find a way to protect witnesses and immediately institute the means by which witnesses can give testimony via video or web conference via the Internet.

We have to clean up the Police Force, so that the bad eggs, no matter their rank, will be exposed and put out of the Force.

We have to ensure that Police Force is reborn into a force of professionals who will serve and protect...not terrorize Jamaican people.

This is the only way that Jamaicans can feel fairly secure that our justice system is at work, hanging and all.

Gillian

Sources Include

1) Power 106 News at 5:00 p.m. November 25,2008

2) Television Jamaica, News at 7:00 p.m., November 25, 2008

Congrats Usain Bolt, Yelena Isinbayeva, IAAF Athletes of the Year!

   

A Big Jamaican congratulations goes out to Yelena Isinbayeva and our very own Usain Bolt, who won the IAAF awards for World Female and Male Athlete of the Year, respectively. 

The award gala took place in Monaco earlier this evening.

(The IAAF is the International Association of Athletic Federations.)

The awards are given to the male and female athletes with the best all-round performances in all the IAAF events for the year.

The awardees are mainly determined by fans.

Fans are invited to vote online for their favorite athlete from a list of nominees provided by the IAAF.

According to iaaf.org:

The fans' votes are then added to a poll of votes from IAAF Athletics Family members to create the shortlist of three (3) who are presented to a Special Jury of the International Athletic Foundation. The Jury then makes the final selection of the Athletes of the Year and announces the winners at the IAAF World Athletics Gala in Monaco.

Yelena is a Russian Pole vaulter with loads of spirit. She defended her Olympic record in the pole vault in this year's Beijing Olympics and remained undefeated in the IAAF outdoor events for 2008.

Usain is the vibrant Jamaican sprinter who won three world records...in the male 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x100 metres relay in this year's Beijing Olympics.

Bolt's parents were also present at the award gala and Jamaican band "Fab 5" gave an ok performance.

Both Yelena and Usain won prizes of USD $100,000 each.

Sources Include

1) Television Jamaica, November 23,2008

2) Article, "Bolt,Isinbayeva win IAAF Athlete of the Year awards", USAToday.com, November 23,2008

3) Article,"World Athlete of the Year - US$100,000 the prize", IAAF.org, November 21,2008