In brief: Opposition party in India sweeps to victory

New Delhi, India – An upstart anti-corruption party swept to a landslide victory Tuesday in state elections in the Indian capital, dealing the first significant political setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The opposition Aam Aadmi Party, whose name means “common man,” won a record-high 67 of 70 seats in the New Delhi state government, according to official tallies – a stunning result in a race that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party until recent days had thought was neck-and-neck.

The outcome signaled that voters in fast-growing New Delhi, which has catapulted past Mumbai to become India’s most populous city and the second-biggest in the world, have not bought into Modi’s mantra of economic change after nearly nine months in office. New Delhi is home not only to India’s political elite but to a massive struggling underclass that has chafed under corruption by establishment parties.

U.S. shuts embassy in Yemen, ambassador to leave country

Washington – The U.S. Embassy in Yemen is closing because of mounting security threats, State Department officials said Tuesday, raising questions about the future of the high-priority U.S. counterterrorism campaign in the unstable Arab nation.

The embassy in Sanaa, the capital, will shut its doors indefinitely after the expected departure of Ambassador Matt Tueller today, officials said. The mission has been reducing its staff and scaling back operations for several months.

Yemen will be the third Middle Eastern country, along with Libya and Syria, from which U.S. diplomats have withdrawn since 2011 because of political strife.

Yemen has been edging toward anarchy since last fall, when Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim rebels known as Houthis swept in from their homeland in the country’s northwest corner to seize Sanaa. They placed the U.S.-backed president, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, under house arrest Jan. 22, leading him and his Cabinet to tender their resignations.

U.S. officials have tried to continue the counterterrorism campaign despite the loss of crucial support from Hadi’s government.

After a two-month pause, they resumed drone strikes last month on al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which U.S. officials consider the terrorist network’s most dangerous affiliate.

Because the drones are flown from bases outside Yemen, the CIA and Pentagon should be able to strike AQAP without an operating embassy, analysts say.