Europe

OSLO/PARIS (Reuters) - Heavily indebted Norwegian Air NORR.OL might have to halt operations in the first quarter of 2021 as it struggles with a coronavirus travel slump unless it secures fresh funding, the budget carrier said as it reported third-quarter results.

The airline, a pioneer in low-fare transatlantic flights whose rapid expansion left it with big debts, held cash and cash equivalents of 3.4 billion crowns ($376 million) at the end of September, down from 4.98 billion crowns at the end of June.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain would get the first vaccines against COVID-19 developed by U.S. pharmaceuticals Pfizer PFE.N and its partner BioNTech 22UAy.DE in early 2021, Health Minister Salvador Illa said on Tuesday.

The country would initially get 20 million vaccine doses, enough to immunize 10 million people, Illa said in an interview with state broadcaster TVE.

The vaccination would be free for everyone, Illa added.

Enough people would be vaccinated by April-May, so that the fight against the pandemic in Spain would move to another stage, Illa added.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Tuesday said there was no agreement about the deployment of Turkish peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, after a ceasefire deal was signed in an effort to halt more than a month of bloodshed in the region.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that a centre to monitor the ceasefire, located outside Nagorno-Karabakh, was subject to a separate agreement.

The presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey earlier on Tuesday discussed creating a joint Russian-Turkish peacekeeping centre, Sputnik Azerbaijan reported.

(Reuters) - The European Commission is expected to file formal antitrust charges against Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O on Tuesday over its dual role as a marketplace for merchants and as a retailer competing to sell the same products, according to a source familiar with the matter.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager has scheduled a 1230 CET (1130 GMT) news conference without specifying the subject.

The Financial Times earlier reported that Vestager will announce formal antitrust charges against Amazon on Tuesday over how it uses data about the merchants on its platform.

GENEVA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United States' human rights record was examined by a working group session of the UN Human Rights Council Monday, where many countries criticized the U.S. human rights situation and proposed recommendations to the country.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia and Azerbaijan announced an agreement early Tuesday to halt fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan under a pact signed with Russia that calls for deployment of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers and territorial concessions.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a 1994 truce ended a separatist war in which an estimated 30,000 people died. Sporadic clashes occurred since then, and full-scale fighting began on Sept. 27.

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/: The fifth joint Russian-Pakistani exercise ‘Friendship-2020’ kicked off at the Tarbela special operations training ground in Pakistan, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday.

BRUSSELS, November 9. /TASS/: Presumptive US President-elect Joe Biden won’t hurry to restore "frictionless cooperation" with the European Union, Simonas Vileikis, a Brussels political adviser to the British consulting company Portland Europe, told TASS on Monday.

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/: Russia recorded 21,798 coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the highest daily number since the start of the pandemic, the anti-coronavirus crisis centre said on Monday. The overall case tally has reached 1,796,132.

The daily number of cases remained over 20,000 for the fourth day in a row. The coronavirus growth rate is about 1.2%.

The rate is the lowest in Dagestan (0.5%), the Moscow, Mari El, Khanty-Mansiysk, Chuvash and Tatarstan regions (0.7%).

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has conducted a major government reshuffle since its present line-up was appointed in January. Five ministers are leaving their posts at once, while the State Duma, lower house of parliament, is yet to approve the nominees, who will replace them under the new law.