News in pictures: Amit Shah congratulates Modi, Tesco profits surge, Huge asteroid to cross Earth's orbit, Biden regrets calling Trump clown, Tesco profits...

GREEK NEO-NAZI LEADER CONVICTED OF 'CRIMINAL' GROUP CHARGE: A court convicted Greek neo-Nazi leader Nikos Michaloliakos Wednesday of leading a "criminal organisation" in a landmark trial involving the xenophobic Golden Dawn party. Michaloliakos and nearly 70 other defendants are on trial for the murder of an anti-fascist rapper and other crimes in a one of the most important trials in Greek political history, which has taken over five years to conclude. https://gulfnews.com/world/europe

SOUTH KOREA TO LEGALISE ABORTIONS: South Korea has decided to amend the anti-abortion law with the right granted to a woman to terminate the pregnancy in the period within 14 weeks at her request without any reasons, the South Korean Ministry of Justice announced on Wednesday. The abortion ban had been in effect since 1953, included in the country's Criminal Code. It was amended in 1973, permitting abortions in cases of rape, incest, health risks for the mother, or hereditary or communicable diseases of the parents. According to the statement released by the ministry, apart from voluntary abortions within the 14-week term, the termination of pregnancy will also be possible at 24-week term in case of medical conditions. Starting Wednesday, the authorities are set to review and adopt the bill. https://gulfnews.com/world/asia

AMIT SHAH CONGRATULATES MODI: Indian Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the latter entered 20th consecutive year as the democratically elected head of a government. PM Modi had taken over as the Chief Minister of Gujarat on October 7, 2001. "October 7 is a very important day in the country's history. In 2001, on this very same day PM Narendra Modi had taken oath as the Gujarat Chief Minister, and from that day the journey of daily setting new milestones in the interest of the nation and service of the people, without stopping, without relaxing started. 20th year of NaMO," Shah's tweet read (roughly translated from Hindi). https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india

TESCO PROFITS SURGE: Britain's biggest retailer, supermarket giant Tesco, announced Wednesday a 42-percent jump in net profit in its first half on soaring online demand for food during the coronavirus outbreak. Profit after tax jumped to #460 million ($585 million, 497 million euros) in the six months to the end of August, compared with #324 million a year earlier, Tesco said in a statement. This came despite exceptional costs of #533 million in response to the pandemic, notably the creation of 16,000 jobs to meet the growing online demand. https://gulfnews.com/world/europe

HURRICANE DELTA HITS MEXICO'S CARIBBEAN COAST: Hurricane Delta churned towards Mexico's Caribbean coast on Wednesday as thousands of tourists hunkered down in emergency shelters in a string of major beach resorts. The hurricane weakened to Category 3 as it approached the Yucatan Peninsula, but still threatened to bring strong winds and a "life-threatening" storm surge, the US National Hurricane Center said. On Tuesday Delta had intensified to an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm, according to the Miami-based center. https://gulfnews.com/world/americas

GERMAN COURT OPENS HIGH-STAKES 'RUSSIAN HITMAN' TRIAL: A Russian man went on trial Wednesday over the assassination of a former Chechen commander in a Berlin park, allegedly on Moscow's orders, a case that risks worsening acrimonious ties between Germany and Russia. Vadim K., also known as Vadim S., stands accused of gunning down a Georgian national identified by German authorities as 40-year-old Tornike K., in Kleiner Tiergarten park on August 23 last year. Prosecutors believe that Russia ordered the killing. https://gulfnews.com/world/europe

BIDEN REGRETS CALLING TRUMP A 'CLOWN': Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said that he regrets calling President Donald Trump a "clown" during the first presidential debate, which was marked by angry interruptions and bitter accusations. "I should have said, this is a clownish undertaking, instead of calling him a clown,” Biden said in response to a question at a town hall organised by NBC News in Miami, Florida. https://gulfnews.com/world/americas

COVID-19 CASES IN INDIA CLIMB TO 67,57,131: India's COVID-19 tally of cases climbed to 6.75 million with 72,049 new cases in a day, while 57,44,693 people have recuperated so far pushing the national recovery rate to 85.02 per cent on Wednesday, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The total coronavirus cases mounted to 67,57,131, while the death toll climbed to 1,04,555 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 986 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.55 per cent. https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india

INDIAN DIRECT TAX REFUNDS OF OVER RS1.21 TRILLION: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has so far issued refunds of over Rs 1.21 trillion to nearly 3.6 million taxpayers in the current financial year (2020-21). https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india

AIRPLANE-SIZE ASTEROID TO CROSS EARTH'S ORBIT: An asteroid the size of a Boeing 747 airplane is set to cross the Earth's orbit at around 10.42 pm Indian Standard Time (IST) on Wednesday, according to NASA which expects that the space rock will not cause any harm to our home planet. As it crosses Earth's orbit, the near-Earth asteroid named 2020 RK2 will be about 38,30,238 kilometres from Earth. In terms of size, the asteroid is about 80 metres wide (which can be as big as Boeing 747) and travelling at 6.68km every second. Asteroid 2020 RK2 will be hurtling through space at a speed of 6.68 kilometres per second, which is the equivalent to 14,942 miles per hour.