Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Report: Lance to admit doping in Oprah interview

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong plans to admit to doping throughout his career during an upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey, USA Today reported late Friday.

The interview, scheduled to be taped Monday and broadcast Thursday night on the Oprah Winfrey Network, will be conducted at Armstrong's home in Austin, Texas.

Citing an anonymous source, USA Today reported that the disgraced cyclist plans to admit using performance-enhancing drugs, but likely will not get into details of the allegations outlined in a 2012 report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that led to Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life from the sport.

His representatives declined comment late Friday, including attorney Tim Herman, but Armstrong sent a text to the Associated Press early Saturday morning saying: "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly, candidly. That's all I can say."

The New York Times first reported last week that Armstrong was considering making a confession.

The 41-year-old Armstrong, who vehemently denied doping for years, has not spoken publicly about the USADA report that cast him as the leader of a sophisticated and brazen doping program on his U.S. Postal Service teams that included use of steroids, blood boosters and illegal blood transfusions.

Winfrey's network announced Tuesday that Armstrong agreed to a "no holds barred" interview with her.

A confession to Winfrey would come at a time when some of Armstrong's legal troubles appear to be clearing up.

Any potential perjury charges stemming from his sworn testimony denying doping in a 2005 arbitration fight with a Dallas promotions company over a contract bonus worth $7.5 million have passed the statute of limitations.

Armstrong faces a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former teammate Floyd Landis accusing him of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service, but the U.S. Department of Justice has yet to announce if it will join the case. The British newspaper The Sunday Times is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit.

Armstrong lost most of his personal sponsorship — worth tens of millions of dollars — after USADA issued its report and he left the board of the Livestrong cancer-fighting charity he founded in 1997. He is still said to be worth an estimated $100 million.

Livestrong might be one reason to issue an apology or make a confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with its famous founder.

The New York Times reported that Armstrong may make a confession in an attempt to return to competition in elite triathlon or running events, but World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what new information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.

Armstrong met with USADA officials recently to explore a "pathway to redemption," according to a report by "60 Minutes Sports" aired Wednesday on Showtime.

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Ancient Pompeians Could Go Upstairs to Pee

The residents of the ancient city of Pompeii weren’t limited to street-level plumbing, a new study finds. In fact, many in the city may have headed upstairs when nature called.

Most second floors in the Roman city are gone, claimed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in A.D. 79. But vertical pipes leading to lost second stories strongly suggest that there were once toilets up there, according to a new analysis by A. Kate Trusler, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Missouri.

“We have 23 toilets that are connected, that are second-story preserved, that are connected to these downpipes,” Trusler told LiveScience on Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle, where she presented her research.

Traces of toilets

Trusler became interested in Pompeii’s latrines six years ago while doing fieldwork in the city. Previous researchers and works on Pompeii often stated that there was a toilet in almost every house. But Trusler found that statement confusing. Walking around the city, she said, it was clear that some spots were chock full of homes with private latrines, while other areas seemed to be toilet deserts.

“And,” Trusler added, “there are all of these downpipes that are part of that picture that no one is really considering.” [Image Gallery: A Look at Pompeii's Toilets]

So Trusler decided to conduct a plumbing survey of sorts, mapping latrine and downpipe locations around the city. One residential district, known to archaeologists as Region 6, does indeed have toilets on the ground story of almost every home, she said. But other blocks have few toilets. In total, 43 percent of homes in the city had latrines on the ground floor, Trusler found.

Downpipes provide the other half of that picture. These vertical, usually terracotta pipes are concentrated in the oldest part of the city, where there were many workshops and small businesses crammed into close quarters. A total of 286 pipes run down the walls of these buildings, leading to the mostly lost second floors. In 23 cases, however, the second story remains, and the same types of pipes lead to latrines.

In addition, Trusler said, unpublished research on scrapings from the insides of the pipes revealed fecal material and traces of intestinal parasites, good signs of a toilet.

The plumbing of Pompeii

The upstairs plumbing offers a window into daily Pompeii life, Trusler said.

“The sanitation features can tell us a lot about what people are doing on upper floors and above these little shops,” she said. “What they suggest is that people are living there.”

Most of the downpipes were likely installed in the first century B.C. into the first century A.D., Trusler said, the same time that the city developed its pumped-water system. Residents of apartments above shops would have been able to get water from public fountains installed in the streets.

“You really have a picture of urban development going on in Pompeii,” Trusler said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

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14-year-old, 15-year-old killed in separate shootings

Two gunmen shot a 14-year-old boy several times Friday night as he stood on his porch, leaving him to die in the front hallway of his Humboldt Park home, authorities said.

The shooting came just hours after a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot in a separate attack in the Little Village neighborhood. Including both homicides, at least six teens under the age of 18 were shot since Friday afternoon, according to police.

In the Humboldt Park shooting, two male shooters opened fire about 11:50 p.m. in the 2400 block of West Augusta Boulevard, striking the boy multiple times in the chest, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said.

Immediately following the shooting, a car sped down the street in reverse and took off, a neighbor said.

It appeared the boy managed to take a couple of steps before collapsing. When paramedics arrived, he was lying just inside the home, bleeding from several bullet wounds, police said. He died at the scene.

Police found blood on the front steps and more than half a dozen shell casings on the sidewalk.

The high school freshman had been talking on a cellphone in front of his home just moments before shots rang out, his stepmother said.

The shooting may have been gang-related, police sources said. Family and friends on the scene, however, said the victim avoided gangs and spent his free time listening to music and riding his bicycle.

The boy would have turned 15 on Tuesday, said his stepmother, whose name -- like that of her stepson -- the Tribune is withholding pending notification of additional family members.

"Now he's not even going to see his 15th birthday," his tearful stepmother said.

Neighbors returning home stared at squad cars and crime scene tape blocking the street of two- and three-story brick homes.

On the sidewalk near the crime scene, the father of one of the boy's friends sobbed as he paced near a group of somber teenagers.

When a neighbor asked him what had happened, his answer was brief.

"A little boy just got murdered," he said.

In the Little Village shooting, a shooter walked up to the 15-year-old about 6:40 p.m. in the 2600 block of South Ridgeway Avenue, News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli said.

The shooter shouted a gang slogan and opened fire, striking the 15-year-old in the torso, Mirabelli said, citing preliminary information.

The boy was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:19 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The medical examiner's office identified him as Victor Vega, of the 2600 block of South Central Park Avenue.

No suspects are in custody in either shooting as detectives investigate.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Obama, Karzai accelerate end of U.S. combat role in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on Friday to speed up the handover of combat operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces, raising the prospect of an accelerated U.S. withdrawal from the country and underscoring Obama's determination to wind down a long, unpopular war.

Signaling a narrowing of differences, Karzai appeared to give ground in talks at the White House on U.S. demands for immunity from prosecution for any American troops who stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, a concession that could allow Obama to keep at least a small residual force there.

Both leaders also threw their support behind tentative Afghan reconciliation efforts with Taliban insurgents, endorsing the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar in hopes of bringing insurgents to inter-Afghan talks.

Outwardly, at least, the meeting appeared to be something of a success for both men, who need to show their vastly different publics they are making progress in their goals for Afghanistan. There were no signs of the friction that has frequently marked Obama's relations with Karzai.

Karzai's visit came amid stepped-up deliberations in Washington over the size and scope of the U.S. military role in Afghanistan once the NATO-led combat mission concludes at the end of 2014.

"By the end of next year, 2014, the transition will be complete," Obama said at a news conference with Karzai standing at his side. "Afghans will have full responsibility for their security, and this war will come to a responsible end."

The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops - far fewer than some U.S. commanders propose - to conduct counterterrorism operations and to train and assist Afghan forces.

A top Obama aide said this week that the administration does not rule out a complete withdrawal after 2014, a move that some experts say would be disastrous for the weak Afghan central government and its fledgling security apparatus.

Obama on Friday left open the possibility of that so-called "zero option" when he several times used the word "if" to suggest that a post-2014 U.S. presence was far from guaranteed.

Insisting that Afghan forces were "stepping up" faster than expected, Obama said Afghan troops would take over the lead in combat missions across the country this spring, rather than waiting until the summer as originally planned. NATO troops will then assume a "support role," he said.

"It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty," Obama said.

Obama said final decisions on this year's troop cuts and the post-2014 U.S. military role were still months away, but his comments suggested he favors a stepped-up withdrawal timetable.

There are some 66,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan. Washington's NATO allies have been steadily reducing their troop numbers as well despite doubts about the ability of Afghan forces to shoulder full responsibility for security.

'WAR OF NECESSITY'

Karzai voiced satisfaction over Obama's agreement to turn over control of detention centers to Afghan authorities, a source of dispute between their countries, although the White House released no details of the accord on that subject.

Obama once called Afghanistan a "war of necessity." But he is heading into a second term looking for an orderly way out of the conflict, which was sparked by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by an al Qaeda network harbored by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

He faces the challenge of pressing ahead with his re-election pledge to continue winding down the war while preparing the Afghan government to prevent a slide into chaos and a Taliban resurgence once most NATO forces are gone.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee to become defense secretary, is likely to favor a sizable troop reduction.

Karzai, meanwhile, is eager to show he is working to ensure Afghans regain full control of their territory after a foreign military presence of more than 11 years.

Asked whether the cost of the war in lives and money was worth it, Obama said: "We achieved our central goal ... or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can't attack us again."

He added: "Have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not. This is a human enterprise, and you fall short of the ideal."

Obama made clear that unless the Afghan government agrees to legal immunity for U.S. troops, he would withdraw them all after 2014 - as happened in Iraq at the end of 2011.

Karzai, who criticized NATO over civilian deaths, said that with Obama's agreement to transfer detention centers and the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghan villages, "I can go to the Afghan people and argue for immunity" in a bilateral security pact being negotiated.

Addressing students at Georgetown University later in the day, the Afghan leader predicted with certainty that the United States would keep a limited number of troops in Afghanistan after 2014, in part to battle al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"One of the reasons the United States will continue a limited presence in Afghanistan after 2014 in certain facilities in Afghanistan is because we have decided together to continue to fight against al Qaeda," Karzai said. "So there will be no respite in that."

Many of Obama's Republican opponents have criticized him for setting a withdrawal timetable and accuse him of undercutting the U.S. mission by reducing troop numbers too quickly.

Karzai and his U.S. partners have not always seen eye to eye, even though the American military has been crucial to preventing insurgent attempts to oust him.

In October, Karzai accused Washington of playing a double game by fighting the war in Afghan villages instead of going after insurgents who cross the border from neighboring Pakistan.

In Friday's news conference, Karzai did not back down from his previous comments that foreigners were responsible for some of the official corruption critics say is rampant in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged: "There is corruption in the Afghan government that we are fighting against."

Adding to tensions has been a rash of deadly "insider" attacks by Afghan soldiers and police against NATO-led troops training or working with them. U.S. forces have also been involved in a series of incidents that enraged Afghans, including burning Korans, which touched off days of rioting.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Mark Felsenthal, Jeff Mason, Phil Stewart, Tabassum Zakaria, David Alexander; Editing by Warren Strobel and Will Dunham)

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Stock futures little changed after S&P hit five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were little changed on Friday, a day after the S&P 500 hit a five-year high and following higher-than-expected results from Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo , the first major U.S. bank to post earnings this season, reported a higher fourth-quarter profit on Friday as it set aside less money to cover bad loans and made more fees from mortgages. Still, its shares fell 1.1 percent to $35 in premarket trading.

Basic materials shares could be hurt after China's annual consumer inflation rate picked up to a seven-month high, narrowing the scope for the central bank to boost the economy by easing monetary policy.

"The bigger news lies ahead of us in terms of earnings and also reports on Christmas sales, which seem to be poor so far," said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Best Buy shares were volatile in premarket trading after it reported flat holiday sales at established U.S. stores. Shares were last up 4.8 percent at $12.80.

Meckler said that in the absence of major news, the market will continue to absorb some of the money that comes in from institutional investors at the start of the year, which could give equities an upside bias.

S&P 500 futures dipped 1 point and were slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 7 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 1 point.

American Express said it would take a $600-million quarterly charge relating to 5,400 job cuts and payment of legal bills, a move likely to halve its net income. Its shares dipped 0.5 percent in premarket trading to $60.51.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner jet was dogged by further incidents that tested confidence in the new plane. It suffered a cracked cockpit window and an oil leak on separate flights in Japan on Friday. The US Department of Transportation said the jet would be subject to a review of its critical systems by regulators. Boeing shares fell 1.5 percent to $75.90 in premarket trading.

In a move that could support US equities and boost the global economic outlook, the Japanese government approved a massive $117 billion of spending to revive the world's third-largest economy in the biggest stimulus plan since the financial crisis.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Browns name Rob Chudzinski new coach

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Browns hauled their coaching search to Arizona and back. They talked to high-profile college coaches, NFL assistants and a fired pro coach who took a team to a Super Bowl.

None of them was hired.

Instead, Rob Chudzinski became their pick.

With no experience as a head coach at any level, Chudzinski was hired Thursday night by the Cleveland Browns, the team he cheered for as a kid. This is Chudzinski's third stint with the team, but this time around he's the guy in charge.

Chudzinski, who spent the past two seasons calling plays as Carolina's offensive coordinator, is the Browns' sixth full-time coach since 1999 and 14th in team history.

Just as it appeared the Browns might be going in another direction, the team selected the 44-year-old Chudzinski to revive a team that has made the playoffs just once in the past 14 years.

Chudzinski will be introduced Friday at an 11 a.m. news conference, where owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner likely will be asked how they selected Banner after speaking to at least seven other candidates and flirting with Chip Kelly before he returned to Oregon.

"Chud," as he's known to players and friends, Chudzinski worked as the Browns' tight ends coach in 2004 and was their offensive coordinator in 2007, when the team won 10 games — their most since an expansion rebirth in 1999.

A lifelong Browns fan who grew up in Toledo, Ohio, Chudzinski replaces Pat Shurmur, another first-time coach when he was hired, who was fired on Dec. 31 after a 5-11 season. For the past two years, Chudzinski has worked with talented Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and resuscitated Carolina's offense, which was one of the league's worst before he arrived.

When Haslam and Banner embarked on their coaching search as 2013 began, the pair vowed they would wait as long as necessary to find "the right coach" for Cleveland. They promised to give their new coach final say over the roster and planned to pair him with an executive to help pick players.

Chudzinski wasn't seen by many as an option.

And then he became the choice.

Chudzinski interviewed with the team on Wednesday, when the club also visited with Cincinnati defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. Chudzinski appeared to be a long shot for the job, not because he wasn't qualified, but because it was thought Haslam wanted to make a big splash with his first coaching hire.

However, Chudzinski wowed Haslam and Banner during his meeting and the team decided it was time to end its search in its second week.

It's not yet known whom Chudzinski will bring in as coordinators. There are reports he may hire former San Diego coach Norv Turner to run his offense. Chudzinski worked for Turner with the Chargers.

In his first season in Carolina, Chudzinski turned Newton, the No. 1 overall draft pick, loose and the Panthers set club records for total yards (6,237) and first downs (345). Carolina also scored 48 touchdowns after getting just 17 in the season before Chudzinski arrived. The Panthers jumped from last in the league in total yardage to seventh, the biggest improvement since 1999.

Following the season, Chudzinski interviewed for head coaching jobs with St. Louis, Jacksonville and Tampa Bay before returning to Carolina.

In getting the Browns' job, Chudzinski was picked over Zimmer, Montreal Alouettes coach Marc Trestman, fired Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt and Cardinals defensive coordinator Ray Horton. Whisenhunt was in Cleveland for a second interview on Thursday, and appeared to be the front-runner. The Browns also were expected to interview Indianapolis offensive coordinator Bruce Arians.

Newton continued to develop in his second season with Chudzinski, and the QB's development may have helped his case since the Browns are hoping Brandon Weeden will improve this year after his uneven rookie season.

After his first stint on Cleveland's staff, Chudzinski spent two seasons as San Diego's tight ends coach, working with perennial Pro Bowl standout Antonio Gates.

Taking over the Browns' offense in 2007, Chudzinski helped the Browns go 10-6. They barely missed the playoffs, but four players, including quarterback Derek Anderson, made the Pro Bowl. However, in 2008, the Browns struggled on offense and a six-game losing streak led to a 4-12 finish and Romeo Crennel's firing.

Chudzinski's hiring may not be popular with Cleveland fans, many of whom at fantasies about Nick Saban or Jon Gruden or Kelly brining his supersonic offense to the NFL.

But his selection is in keeping with at least one of Banner's past moves. When he was in Philadelphia's front office, Banner went outside the box and hired Green Bay assistant Andy Reid, a relative unknown who spent 14 seasons with the Eagles.

Now that they've got their coach, the Browns can focus on finding a GM to replace Tom Heckert, fired after three seasons.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Why global labor reforms are vital

(File photo) Sri Lankan women protest outside the Saudi Arabia embassy in Colombo on November 9, 2010.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

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Couple fighting South Korea to keep 7-month-old girl

Jinshil and Christopher Duquet were in the process of adopting a baby from South Korea when complications arose with the Korean government. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune)

By Lisa Black and Bonnie Miller Rubin




Tribune reporters

7:27 a.m. CST, January 11, 2013

An Evanston family will appear in federal court today as they try to keep a South Korean baby they adopted in June from being returned to her home country.

Sehwa Kim, now 7 months old, has spent most of her life with Jinshil and Christopher Duquet, who say they were misled by a Korean lawyer who provided them with bad information and documents for what they believed to be a legal private adoption.

Korean officials accuse the family of criminal action, saying they didn’t follow the country’s procedures for adoption, and question funds the family gave on behalf of the child to a shelter and the child’s birth mother.

The family believes their case is being used as a political pawn in what is really Korea’s objection to all U.S. adoptions.
After hearings this week in which the family tried to prove they are the legal guardians, a Cook County Circuit Court judge declared that they didn’t have standing.  A federal judge today may order the child removed from the family’s custody. 

The birth mother’s intention to put her baby up for adoption is not in dispute. She and the baby’s grandparents signed papers agreeing to renounce their parental rights so that the child could be adopted by the Duquets.

The number of international adoptions in South Korea and elsewhere has plummeted after years of growth. According to State Department data, almost 23,000 Americans in 2004 looked to other countries to build their families. By 2011, the figure had dwindled to 9,300 adoptions.

Read more about the family's struggle HERE.

lblack@tribune.com
brubin@tribune.com

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