KABUL (Reuters) -Afghanistan's Taliban foreign minister left for New Delhi on Wednesday, his ministry said, in what would be the first visit to India by a Taliban leader since the group seized power in 2021.

The trip highlights Taliban efforts to expand engagement with regional powers in a quest for economic ties and eventual diplomatic recognition. So far, Russia is the only country to have formally recognised the Taliban administration.

LONDON (Reuters) -Two men plotted an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in northwest England with the aim of "killing hundreds of innocent people", British prosecutors said on Wednesday at the start of their trial.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, are charged with preparing terrorist acts, while Walid Saadaoui's brother Bilel Saadaoui, 36, is charged with failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

Iran has released a 19-year-old Franco-German national days after throwing out spying charges against him, France's foreign minister told AFP on Wednesday.

Lennart Monterlos is the latest French national to be released from Iranian detention this year, even as others remain in custody.

"Lennart Monterlos is free," said Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, with sources close to the case saying the young man would travel to France on Thursday.

Palestinian journalists and local officials rallied against Israeli attacks on Gaza media workers Wednesday in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, AFP journalists reported.

Dozens of journalists and Palestinian officials marched towards the city's UN headquarters carrying coffins bearing the names and photos of journalists killed in the Gaza Strip since the war started on October 7, 2023.

"All of them, every single one of them has his own story," said Nasser Abu Baker, head of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, which organised the event.

The global economy is doing better than expected, even as it faces prolonged uncertainty and underwhelming medium-term growth prospects, the head of the IMF said Wednesday.

The world economy is doing "better than feared, but worse than we need," International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters in Washington.

She added that the Fund now expects global growth to slow "only slightly this year and next," propped up by better-than-expected conditions in the United States, and among some other advanced, emerging market and developing countries.

PARIS (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to attend a ministerial meeting to be held on Thursday in Paris with European, Arab and other states to discuss Gaza's post-war transition, three diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.

The meeting, to be held in parallel with indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Egypt on U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for Gaza, is intended to discuss how the plan would be implemented and assess countries' collective commitments to the process.

The health of Hannibal Kadhafi, son of longtime Libyan ruler Moamer Kadhafi, is alarming and he should be released after nearly a decade of pre-trial detention in Lebanon, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Lebanese authorities arrested Kadhafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric imam Mussa Sadr nearly four decades earlier.

Kadhafi, 49, was "urgently hospitalised" after experiencing "very strong abdominal pain", French lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP, adding that his client also suffers from severe depression.

By Johan Ahlander and Niklas Pollard

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Scientists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel chemistry prize for developing a new form of molecular architecture, yielding materials that can help tackle challenges such as climate change and lack of fresh water.

The three laureates worked to create molecular constructions, known as metal-organic frameworks or MOFs, with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow and that can be utilised to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide or store toxic gases.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -The grandson of late South African president and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela arrived in Johannesburg on Wednesday after being detained and then deported by Israel, which prevented the flotilla he was part of delivering aid to Gaza.

Mandla Mandela, who returned home with four other South Africans, said he and the group he was with were held in an Israeli prison for six days before being released via Jordan.

(Reuters) -A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that negotiators from his Palestinian militant group and Israel had exchanged lists of prisoners and hostages who would be released should a deal be reached during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt.

Israel hopes the talks will lead to the release and recovery of the remaining 48 hostages seized during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.