HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's National Assembly approved a law on Tuesday that bans commemorative statues of Fidel Castro and naming public places after him, in accordance with the wishes of the revolutionary leader, who died last month. Castro always said he did not want a cult of personality, although critics point out that the cult was everywhere.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he has evidence that U.S.-led coalition forces give support to terrorist groups including the Islamic State and Kurdish militant groups YPG and PYD, he said on Tuesday. "They were accusing us of supporting Daesh (Islamic State)," he told a press conference in Ankara.

By Jeffrey Heller JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Jerusalem municipality is due to act on Wednesday on requests to construct hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city, drawing fresh criticism from the United States that settlement activity puts Middle East peace-making at risk.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Public Security Ministry, which runs the police, needs to deepen efforts to root out the "pernicious influence" of jailed former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, the ministry's Communist Party committee said on Wednesday.

By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian investigators looking into the crash of a military plane that crashed, killing all 92 on board, believe a fault with its wing flaps was the reason it plunged into the Black Sea, an investigative source told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday.

By Jeff Mason PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a symbolic visit to Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, commemorating the victims of Japan's World War Two attack and promising that his country would never wage war again.

KABUL (Reuters) - An explosion hit a crowded area of the Afghan capital on Wednesday, a witness said. There was no initial word on the cause of the explosion or of any casualties. (Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)

By Stephen Kalin EAST OF MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces will resume their push against Islamic State inside Mosul in the coming days, a U.S. battlefield commander said, in a new phase of the two-month-old operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line in the city.

By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia expanded its search on Monday for the remains of a military plane that crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 92 on board, and said pilot error or a technical fault - but not terrorism - were likely to have caused the tragedy.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's space program must help protect the country's national security, but China is dedicated to the peaceful use of space and opposes a space arms race, the government said in a policy paper issued on Tuesday. President Xi Jinping has called for China to establish itself as a space power, and it has tested anti-satellite missiles, in addition to its civilian aims