Petroecuador issued a statement saying pumping resumed at 9:15 a.m. (1415 GMT) through the Trans-Ecuador pipeline and it said the flow should be back to normal within hours. Closure of the line had forced Petroecuador to accelerate three 360,000-barrel shipments of oil for China to free storage space.

A rain-caused landslide on Friday ripped up a 100-meter (100-yard) long stretch of the line near the Reventador volcano.

The company said it did not know how much of the 420,000 gallons (1.6 million liters) of crude oil that spilled had reached the Quijos river, a waterway popular with whitewater rafting enthusiasts.

But enough flowed from the Quijos into the Coca and Napo rivers downstream that the regional capital of Coca had to shut down its drinking water system and Ecuador's government alerted Peru and Brazil, which are along the course of the Napo as it heads toward the Amazon.

In Coca, an urban area of about 80,000 people at the confluence of the Coca and Napo rivers, Mayor Ana Rivas told the Sonorama radio station that the accident "has left us without water because the river we take potable water from is contaminated. The people are indignant because there is no water to drink."

Petroecuador has distributed bottled water to the city and Rivas said officials were using tankers to collect water from an uncontaminated stretch of river.

Alexandra Almeida of the environmental group Accion Ecologica expressed concern because "they still don't know the real quantity of this spill of crude that affected the principle sources of water of this region."

Australia 2 W 2-0 1955 South Africa 4 T 2-2 1959 Australia 2 W 2-0

New Zealand 4 L 1-3 1962 South Africa 4 L 0-3 1966 Australia 2 W 2-0

New Zealand 4 L 0-4 1968 South Africa 4 L 0-3 1971 New Zealand 4 W 2-1 1974 South Africa 4 W 3-0 1977 New Zealand 4 L 1-3 1980 South Africa 4 L 1-3 1983 New Zealand 4 L 0-4 1989 Australia 3 W 2-1 1993 New Zealand 3 L 1-2 1997 South Africa 3 W 2-1 2001 Australia 3 L 1-2 2005 New Zealand 3 L 0-3 2009 South Africa 3 L 1-2 (Compiled by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Europe's top trade official for the first time late on Friday officially cited Chinese mobile telecommunications equipment makers Huawei and ZTE Corp for violating anti-dumping and anti-subsidy guidelines.

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said he was prepared to launch a formal investigation into anti-competitive behavior by these Chinese companies in order to protect a "strategic" sector of Europe's economy.

"Huawei and ZTE are dumping their products on the European market," De Gucht told Reuters in an exclusive interview before engaging with U.S. businesses as part of his preparations for negotiating a Transatlantic free trade pact with the United States. Those talks are expected to begin in July.

An investigation now into sales practices of Chinese telecoms equipment companies would open up a new front in a multibillion-euro trade offensive against a critical partner.

The EU is China's most important trading partner, while for the EU, China is second only to the United States. Chinese exports of goods to the 27-member bloc totaled 290 billion euros ($372 billion) last year, with 144 billion euros going the other way.

Cheap capital for these Chinese companies "creates a distorted playing field and that is what this is about," De Gucht said, referring to Huawei and ZTE, respectively the world's No. 2 and No. 5 telecom equipment makers.

Huawei denied it had broken any rules.

"In Europe and in all markets, Huawei always plays fair and we win business and trust from our customers through our innovative technology and quality service, rather than via pricing or subsidies," the company said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.

Separately, the official China Daily quoted Huawei's Western Europe president Tao Jingwen as saying that the firm's rivals were blaming the company for their own failures.

"Some European companies have blamed Chinese companies for their losses, but sometimes they were caused by their own laziness," Tao said in a report carried before the publication of De Gucht's remarks.

ZTE could not be reached immediately for comment, but the company has also in the past denied benefiting from illegal state support.

A STRATEGIC PAUSE

De Gucht's office on Wednesday said an investigation was prepared but put on hold. At the time no companies were officially named. The pause is to allow further negotiations with China in hopes for a resolution.

"We have already had three rounds of negotiations on that, but without any satisfactory outcome," he said.

"I think it is better for the whole world economy and trade that these two big trading partners come to an amicable solution on what is in fact a very strategic and crucial sector. But you need two to tango and we have the necessary resolve to go for it if necessary," he said.

China responded on Thursday, threatening the EU with retaliation.

European telecom equipment makers have not made any complaints for fear of Chinese reprisals. Therefore if the EU makes the case, it does so for the first time on its own initiative, known as ex-officio. European manufacturer Ericsson is the global leader with a 35 percent market share. It said it opposed the Commission's move.

"I don't want to elaborate on what could be the sanctions... Everybody knows. The Chinese know our procedures as well as we do. They are very well aware of what is in our toolbox," De Gucht said.

China exports network equipment, base stations and connections used by telecom providers to transmit voice and data messages worth more than 1 billion euros a year to the EU, giving it almost a quarter of the market.

Meanwhile, De Gucht would not comment on whether he will go ahead with imposing punitive import duties on 21 billion euros worth of imported Chinese solar panels. The European Commission agreed to his proposal for a 47 percent tariff, which he can formally declare on June 6 if it is published in the EU's Official Journal.

AT THE MOVIES

While Europe battles with China over trade, given 18 out of 31 ongoing trade investigations are with Beijing, De Gucht said he is eager for talks to start with Washington on a trade pact focused on making each other's regulations more compatible.

"The most important part of that agreement, because it would be a real game-changer, is the regulatory (component)," he said.

The EU and the United States account for nearly half of the world's economic output and 30 percent of trade, with goods and services worth $2.7 billion traded bilaterally every day. Those figures were released in February when the two sides announced they would launch bilateral trade talks.

However U.S. President Barack Obama's pick for the U.S. Trade Representative cabinet post, Mike Froman, has yet to be confirmed. Froman is the White House chief international economic affairs advisor, a job he has held since Obama took office in 2009.

Ahead of the talks France has already pushed to exclude from negotiation the movie and television industries.

France has long defended a "cultural exception" in trade affairs in what it sees is a need to protect European arts from Hollywood-driven market forces.

According to the latest data from the Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. film and television services exports in 2010 were $13.5 billion, down 2 percent from 2009 but up 6 percent over 2006.

De Gucht said the EU would not put on the table "a cut to the subsidies for European film producers." Instead, for the first time, he is arguing the audiovisual sector should be included so European businesses could benefit from developments in the digital media sphere.

"What we would prefer not to have is a carve out of the whole sector and I hope that we can manage to do so."

(1 euro = $1.28)

(Reporting by Daniel Bases; Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Xiaoyi Shao in BEIJING; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Sanjeev Miglani)

A few glance curiously at the crumbling Waikiki Natatorium, a salt water pool built in 1927 as a memorial to the 10,000 soldiers from Hawaii who served in World War I. But the monument's walls are caked with salt and rust, and passers-by are quickly diverted by the lure of sand and waves.

The faded structure has been closed to the public for decades, the object of seemingly endless debate over whether it should be demolished or restored to its former glory. The latest plan is to replace it with a beach, more practical for the state's lucrative tourism industry and millions of dollars cheaper, according to state and local officials. They say a full restoration could cost nearly $70 million.

The corroding monument has challenged the community to maneuver a delicate question: How do we honor those who have served when memorials deteriorate and finances are tight?

Similar debates have been playing out across the nation.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation waged a 2-year fight to restore the aging Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., when some people proposed replacing it. Far less disagreement surrounded a decision to update the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco after a powerful earthquake in 1989.

In Greensboro, N.C., residents have been grappling with what to do with the city's own decaying tribute to the soldiers of World War I.

The Greensboro World War Memorial Stadium hosted minor league baseball for decades and even served as a location for notable sports films such as "Leatherheads" and "Bull Durham."

Yet, despite continued use by kids and college-level athletes, the structure is falling into disrepair.

The historic pebbled facade is falling off, and some of the bleachers are blocked off because of crumbling concrete, said David Wharton, a Greensboro resident who is fighting as a member of his neighborhood association to restore the structure.

It's been a losing battle. The city rejected two referendums to fund renovations and chose to build a new stadium for minor league baseball instead of fixing up the old one.

As a classics professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Wharton has a soft spot for historic places. But he recognizes there are many other priorities competing for the millions of dollars it would take to restore the stadium.

A city group is exploring different ways to use the space, and preservation advocates hope the monument can be saved even if that means changing the stadium's purpose.

For many residents, the structure's architectural and historic significance pales in comparison to more immediate needs.

"The war was a long time ago," Wharton said. "I don't think it's meaningful for most people."

Sometimes, communities decide that memorials aren't worth the price.

In Michigan's upper peninsula, the Wakefield Memorial Building once stood as a grand structure overlooking a lake in Wakefield, an old mining town. The memorial, built in 1924 to commemorate the sacrifices of World War I soldiers, was expansive, including a banquet hall, meeting room and theater.

By the 1950s, the community couldn't afford the upkeep of the building and sold it to a private owner. Over the years, there were attempts to renovate the structure. But it was deemed too expensive and by 2010, the building was demolished.

John Siira, the city manager, said there are plans to build a new memorial at the site, including a City Hall and library.

But the project is on hold, and Siira said he's not sure when construction will start or when the project will pick up again.

The lot where the building used to stand is now an empty lawn. The snow melted just last week, remnants of a long winter.

In Honolulu, the fight over the beachside memorial is far from over.

Jason Woll, who manages the beaches and parks in Waikiki, says the salty air, crashing waves and decades-old construction material have contributed to the memorial's demise.

"Unfortunately this may have had its day in the sun," Woll said. "It's a World War I memorial but quite frankly, it looks like it's been through war."

Hawaii state and local officials recently announced a proposal to tear down the building and have started analyzing the plan a process expected to take at least a year.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell says the demolition has been a long time coming.

"The greater disrespect is allowing the pool to continue to crumble and fall into the sea," Caldwell said.

Caldwell says the new beach would better serve local residents and plans to preserve the memorial's arch will honor the soldiers. Demolishing the structure for $18 million is much cheaper than the $69 million price tag attached to full renovation, he said.

But an organization called Friends of the Natatorium says the city's cost analysis is wrong and renovation would in fact be cheaper than demolition. The group, led by former state lawmaker Peter Apo, wants a moratorium on any plans to destroy the memorial to give the group time to fundraise for restoration.

Apo says because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places, a restoration campaign could attract philanthropy from across the nation. But he acknowledges that it could be hard to garner public support. World War I doesn't carry the same significance in Hawaii as World War II, and many people like the idea of a new beach.

The site is such a safety hazard that public access has been blocked since 1979 well past the pool's days of hosting legendary athletes like Olympic swimmer and surf icon Duke Kahanamoku.

Crabs scuttle between "Danger" signs lining the building's edges, and sharks swim in the pool, beneath the cracks of the crumbling floor.

"We're a nation of short memory," Apo said.

______

Follow Anita Hofschneider on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ahofschneider

The list, which measures an ecosystem's risk of collapse, will be similar to the group's authoritative , which created internationally accepted criteria for assessing extinction risk.

"The Red Lists for species and ecosystems will together provide a more comprehensive view of the status of the environment and its biodiversity than either can on its own," said lead study author David Keith, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

"Thefocuses on a high level of biodiversity, the habitats for species, as well as their interactions and dependencies, including food webs, Keith told OurAmazingPlanet in an email interview. These are difficult or impossible to address in Red List assessments of individual species, but very important for the functioning of ecosystems and the services that they provide to support our standards of living."

Through 20 case studies, Keith and an international team of biologists and conservationists designed criteria that could assess the health of all of Earth's varied , from spring-fed limestone caves to sparkling coral reefs.

"This is really a unifying framework," said study co-author Richard Kingsford, also a professor at the University of New South Wales. "The most important thing here, from my point of view, is providing evidence that pushes governments to do things to protect these magnificent parts of the world."

Of the ecosystems examined in the case studies, the most endangered site was the . Drained by a massive irrigation project and further devastated by drought and pollution, the inland sea's ecosystem has collapsed the equivalent of species extinction, the study concludes.The rest of the ecosystem threat categories mirror those for species: critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable and least concern.

North American ecosystems appearing in the case studies included Alaska's giant kelp forests; the Great Lakes' rare Alvar beaches, a legacy of glaciers grinding across the landscape; and Caribbean coral reefs.

The IUCN group that developed the Red List of Ecosystems criteria plans to formally propose the framework to IUCN leadership this year. Funding is in place for listing ecosystems in the Americas, and the organization hopes to have a global list in place by 2025.

Development of ecosystem and speciesare also underway the carrot to the Red Lists' stick to help the IUCN promote conservation by rewarding successes.

Here are the 20 case studies published today, from most to least endangered, with the ecosystem type noted if available.

Emailor follow her . Follow us, & . Original article on .

RELATED:

As the search was happening, local police in Newtown were giving a press conference to update the media on the investigation and stated that any threats or attempts to interfere in the investigation would be taken seriously and possibly lead to prosecution. A student at nearby Bristol Central High School for making threatening comments over the weekend and a memorial service at a local church was after an apparent threat was made. Connecticut schools had already been closed Monday as officials and teachers dealt with how to readjust themselves and students following the Newtown shooting.

A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.

Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.

Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.

"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.

"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.

If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.

For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index up 1.7 percent.

Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.

IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY

Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.

If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.

"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.

"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."

Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.

Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.

"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.

"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."

Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.

The PHLX defense sector index hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.

Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.

U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Marketers are boosting spending on ads that reach consumers on smartphones and tablet PCs at a much faster than expected pace, eMarketer said on Monday. The firm said it expects that overall U.S. mobile ad spending in 2012 will increase 180 percent year-on-year to more than $4 billion -- a sharp revision from its forecast in September which sized the market at $2.61 billion.

Internet search engine Google is expected to remain the top player in the market for the foreseeable future, with revenue reaching $6.33 billion in 2014, eMarketer projected. Google's mobile ad revenue, will increase roughly 84 percent in 2013 to reach $3.98 billion.

Facebook mobile ads in the United States will total $339.3 million in 2012 and rise to $851.4 million in 2013, eMarketer said. The firm's figures are based on an analysis of data from research firms, investment banks and "other sources" on ad revenues, ad impressions and ad prices.

While Facebook offered no mobile ads on its social network at the beginning of the year - a factor that has pressured its revenue growth and its stock price - the company's mobile ad business grew at an "unexpected" rate in the third quarter, eMarketer said.

Online music streaming service Pandora Media Inc, microblog Twitter and iPhone-maker Apple Inc round out the top five U.S. mobile ad business by revenue, according to eMarketer.

Mobile ad revenue at the privately-held Twitter, which does not disclose its financial results, will reach $134.9 million in 2012 and grow to $248.9 million next year, eMarketer said.

Consumers are increasingly using smartphones instead of, or in addition, to PCs to surf the Web and to use online applications such as video games and music streaming services. More than half of Facebook's 1 billion users accessed the social network on a mobile device in September, the company said in its most recent 10Q filing.

Mobile advertising remains a small portion of the total U.S. advertising market, accounting for 2.4 percent of all spending in 2012 compared to 38.9 percent for television, eMarketer said. But mobile ad spending will overtake ad spending on radio and newspapers in 2016, the firm estimated.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andrew Hay)

The mayor of the town of Abomey, Patrice Hounsou Guede, said Monday on local radio that most of the victims were women and children who were returning from school by taking a boat over the river.She said 19 people drowned and eight people lived.

Witnesses say the boat was only meant to hold 12 people, but the man running it had charged for 27 people and four motorbikes.

For the residents of Ouedo, crossing this river is the easiest and cheapest way to access the market across the river in Togba as there is no bridge.

Guede says the man who ran the boat has been arrested.

The right-of-center Conservative government says that while it wants Canada to remain one of the world's top destinations for refugees, it is being swamped by people who pretend they are escaping persecution but in reality want to sign up for welfare payments.

Starting on Saturday, Ottawa will deal much more quickly with claims made by people from a list of "safe" countries that includes 25 of the European Union's 27 members, as well as Croatia and the United States.

Critics said the new rules meant genuine refugees would not be able to defend themselves before facing deportation.

Kenney said virtually all the claims made by people from the 27 nations in question were either abandoned or withdrawn. Most of the rest were rejected.

"It is a cause for serious concern that the European Union, with its democratic tradition of freedom, respect for human rights and independent judiciaries, has been the number-one source for asylum claims made in Canada over the past three years," he told a news conference.

"Failed EU claimants are able to spend years in Canada at great expense to our taxpayers - receiving free healthcare, welfare, education and other social benefits," he said.

From now on, he said, nationals from the 27 nations filing claims for asylum would have their cases heard within 45 days, rather than around 600 days as at present. They will not be allowed to appeal to a new refugee appeal division set up by the government.

Canada's longstanding humanitarian tradition has made it a preferred haven for people fleeing violence and persecution in their own countries.

Rights group Amnesty International criticized the government plan.

"Denying claimants access to an appeal, based solely on the country from which they have come, is unequal and unfair treatment," said Gloria Nafziger of Amnesty International Canada.

"It may lead to mistakes going uncorrected and refugees being forcibly returned to a risk of persecution ... This provision will have a particularly harsh impact on refugees who are fleeing persecution that is not well documented or acknowledged by officials, including human rights violations due to their gender or sexual orientation."

In June, Canada withdrew health benefits for asylum seekers from safe nations, saying they could only receive medical treatment in an emergency. It defended the measure on cost grounds.

Kenney said Canada already welcomed one in every 10 resettled refugees around the world and would increase its target by 20 percent.

Hungary, he noted, was the top source of asylum claims in Canada in 2011. A full 98 percent of all asylum claims made by Hungarians around the world were made in Canada, even though Hungarians as EU citizens could travel freely within the bloc.

Since 2008 Canada has received around 6,000 asylum claims from Hungarians, of which 62 percent were either abandoned or withdrawn and a further 33 percent were rejected.

In 2010, the far-right Jobbik movement became the third-biggest party in the Hungarian parliament after a campaign which vilified the Roma minority. Last month a Jobbik lawmaker said it would be "timely" to draw up a list of people of Jewish ancestry who posed a national-security risk.

The only two EU countries not on the list of safe countries are Romania and Bulgaria, since their nationals make a higher percentage of successful asylum claims. Kenney said Mexico and Israel could be added to the list in future.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by David Brunnstrom)