Britain warned Tuesday that the West and Russia faced a changed relationship in the coming years, as London suspended all bilateral military cooperation and halted arms exports to Russia.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said President Vladimir Putin had chosen the "route of isolation" by signing a treaty annexing Crimea just two days after a hastily arranged referendum on the breakaway peninsula.

Nigeria on Tuesday unveiled a new "soft power" plan to defeat Boko Haram, hoping to win hearts and minds in the restive northeast, as the military said it was tightening the net on the ground.

National security adviser Sambo Dasuki said the government was to introduce schemes to encourage local communities to shun extremism as well as "de-radicalize" suspected militants awaiting trial.

The head of the Iranian judiciary's High Council of Human Rights said Tuesday he hoped that two reformist opposition leaders will be freed from more than three years of house arrest, media reported.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both candidates in the disputed 2009 presidential election won by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been held incommunicado since February 2011.

A court in Pakistan on Tuesday jailed a British mother-of-three for life for attempting to smuggle 63 kilograms (139 pounds) of heroin out of the country.

Khadija Shah, who is from the central city of Birmingham and of Pakistani descent, was arrested at Islamabad airport in May 2012 when the drugs were found in her luggage.

Somalia's Al-Qaida linked Shebab attacked a hotel crowded with army officers in a southern town days after African Union troops celebrated its capture from the Islamists, security officials said Tuesday.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed full of explosives into the hotel, with gunmen then attacking, killing at least eight people, residents said.

Ukraine's new Western-backed prime minister said Tuesday that the ex-Soviet country had no plans to join NATO following last month's fall of a pro-Kremlin regime.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk delivered a special address to the nation designed to ease tensions between Ukrainian nationalists who spearheaded three months of protests against the pro-Moscow authorities and Russian speakers who view the new pro-European government in Kiev with mistrust.

A group of U.N. rights experts on Tuesday condemned the death in detention of a dissident Chinese activist, saying she was denied access to vitally-needed medical treatment for months.

"The death of Ms. Cao is a tragic example of the results of criminalization of the activities of human defenders in China and reprisals against them," a group of U.N. rights experts said in a statement.

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey on Tuesday over its "inhuman" treatment of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The court ruled that holding the founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in isolation for more than a decade on the high-security island prison of Imrali constituted mistreatment by the Turkish authorities.

Vietnam's president on Tuesday warned against the use of force in territorial disputes as his nation and its neighbors lock horns with an increasingly assertive China over competing claims in the South China Sea.

President Truong Tan Sang made the comments in Japan's parliament during a four-day visit.

Talks between Iran and six world powers aimed at agreeing a lasting nuclear deal resumed in Vienna on Tuesday, a U.S. official said.

The parties aim to transform by July an interim accord struck in November into a final deal that resolves for good the decade-old standoff over Iran's nuclear program.