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LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Bombs outside two churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed 14 people and wounded nearly 80 during Sunday services, and witnesses said quick action by a security guard prevented many more deaths. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility. Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more. Many Christians, who make up less than two percent of Pakistan's population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow...

A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel's activities told FoxNews.com. The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader. The development comes as Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel Two television station this week...

A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel's activities told FoxNews.com. The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader. The development comes as Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel Two television station this week...

The U.S. has failed to live up to its promises to help Iraq fight Islamic State extremists, unlike the “unconditional” assistance being given by Iran, the commander of Iraq’s powerful Shiite militias alleged Friday. In a battlefield interview near Tikrit, where Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the militants of the so-called Islamic State, commander Hadi al-Amiri criticized those who “kiss the hands of the Americans and get nothing in return.” […] An Iraqi government official told The Associated Press that Iran has sold Baghdad nearly $10 billion in arms and hardware, mostly weapons for urban...

Republicans critical of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks contend President Barack Obama is so keen for a deal that he is ignoring Tehran’s moves to expand its influence across the Middle East. GOP hawks maintain that Obama wants so much to burnish his legacy by negotiating an agreement to restrain Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state that he is not pushing back against Iranian activities in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain. Secretary of State John Kerry has push back against lawmakers, including some who insist that the nuclear negotiations have hamstrung U.S. policy decisions in the region. …

Final pre-election polls released on Friday evening show that the “Zionist Union”, headed by Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, is maintaining a four-seat lead over the Likud headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. According to election laws in Israel polls cannot be released in the final three days before election day, which is on Tuesday. A Channel 10 News poll gives the “Zionist Union” 24 seats, while the Likud has 20 seats.

Philadelphia’s transit system has been ordered to accept provocative ads that include a 1941 photograph of Adolf Hitler with a former Arab leader after a federal judge ruled in favour of a pro-Israel group’s free-speech lawsuit. The proposed bus ads carry a tagline saying: “Jew Hatred: It’s in the Quran”. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority believes the ads violate “minimal civility standards” and will consider an appeal. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported on Wednesday’s ruling by US district judge Mitchell Goldberg. The ad in question features a photograph of a 1941 meeting between Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, described...

Vanity Fair estimated the cost of the Iraq War to be $3 trillion. Iran has a population that is more than double the population of Iraq, and is much richer than Iraq was in 2003. A War with Iran will cost over 6 trillion dollars, without even factoring inflation since 2003. When inflation is factored in, that would add about $10 trillion dollars to the deficit. Can America afford the $10 trillion it will take to wage war and occupy Iran?

Talk radio host Glenn Beck is up in arms over his belief that National Rifle Association board member Grover Norquist is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and he may end his membership with the gun rights group if Norquist is re-elected. Beck dropped that bombshell on his millions of listeners in an interview on Wednesday with Frank Gaffney, the president of the terror watch group Center for Security Policy. Beck said he is convinced that Norquist, the longtime anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform, is “a dangerous man” and in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties...

A key European diplomat said Thursday that the letter to Iran from Senate Republicans “was not helpful” to ongoing international nuclear talks with Iran, as other officials lowered expectations for reaching a framework deal this month. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was reacting to a letter signed by 47 Senate Republicans warning Tehran that any nuclear deal it strikes with President Barack Obama will be non-binding and easily undone. Steinmeier added that to call the missive unhelpful was “an understatement.” Germany is among the six nations conducting talks with Iran in an effort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear...

Inking this accord increases the chances that Israel and the United States take military action against Iran to stop its nuclear program The Obama Administration may be on the verge of completing a deal that leaves Iran with a substantial nuclear capability, but about a year away from a bomb’s worth of fissile material. By not insisting on the dismantlement of any major nuclear infrastructure, or even on the complete cessation of enrichment activities, the White House is betting that not only is Iran likely to heed the deal, but also that the United States would have enough time to...

Draft legislation aimed at boosting a flagging birth rate threatens to reduce Iranian women to “baby-making machines” and set their rights back by decades, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday. The London-based human rights group said that a first bill, which has already been approved once by parliament, would restrict access to contraception, forcing women into unsafe backstreet abortions.It said the second draft law, which is to go before parliament next month, would close many jobs to women who choose not to or are unable to have children. …

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pushing back hard against conservative claims that the recent Republican letter to Iranian leaders, which has infuriated the White House amid delicate nuclear talks, is akin to her 2007 visit to Syria against the wishes of the Bush administration. The office of the House minority leader issued a scathing statement Wednesday night saying her meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was part of a bipartisan effort — conducted through the Bush administration — to encourage peace in the region, and accusing Republicans of launching a "desperate" defense of their Iran letter to mask criticisms coming...

A Berlin court has fined three Lebanese men on allegations they seized a 15-year-old relative against his will in what he says was an attempt to force him into marriage because he’s gay. State Court spokesman Tobias Kähne said Thursday the boy’s father and two uncles were each fined €1,350 ($1,430), or 90 days in jail if they don’t pay. …

Christians are frightened to reveal their religious beliefs to colleagues at work, equality chiefs admit. When they do declare their Christianity, whether in the office or on the shop floor, they are often mocked or treated like bigots—and their children are even ridiculed at school. Christians also think their faith is being pushed out of its role as a cornerstone of life in Britain, according to a major study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. And ironically, many feel they are being persecuted by the same anti-discrimination and equality laws supported by the equality watchdog. …

Early Tuesday morning, Israeli police demolished an illegally built structure a few hundred meters away from the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus which bore a European Union (EU) flag, according to rights group Regavim. The structure was situated on state land which is zoned as a national park, it is one of five hundred built by the European Union on state land in and around Jerusalem,without any coordination with the Israeli authorities. A recent report by Regavim highlighted this new EU policy of unilaterally building on behalf of the Palestinians in Jerusalem and Area C of Judea and Samaria...

America, we have a problem. In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can't or won't fight. The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and ran all the way to Baghdad. The Turks could annihilate ISIS in Syria, but they won't fight. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs have sent zero troops to fight ISIS. A handful of air strikes is it. Now consider what our old enemies have done...

In his first major policy speech since assuming the throne in January, Saudi King Salman has vowed that the kingdom will defend Arab and Muslim causes. He also promised continuity and development despite low oil prices, but called on Saudi citizens, businessmen and officials to do their part to improve the country. …

It’s safe to say that no president in modern times has had his legitimacy questioned by the opposition party as much as Barack Obama. But as his term in office enters its final phase, Republicans are embarking on an entirely new enterprise: They have decided that as long as he holds the office of the presidency, it’s no longer necessary to respect the office itself. Is that a bit hyperbolic? Maybe. But this news is nothing short of stunning: A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they...

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid angrily denounced a Republican-led effort to circumvent President Barack Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, calling it “hard slap in the face” of the United States. As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the engineer of a letter that panned Obama’s effort as merely an “executive agreement,” watched from the presiding officer’s chair on Monday afternoon, Reid called the end-around by 47 Republicans a “juvenile” attack and an attempt to undermine Obama “purely out of spite.” “The judgment of my Republican colleagues seems to be clouded by their abhorrence of President Obama. The Republican senators...