Headlines:

• Peter Schiff: Market-Crushing Treasury Collapse To Hit Around 2013
• French-Israeli Journalist Calls on Paris to Rein in Muslims
• Tunisia constitution will not be Based on Islamic Law: Party
• US Poll: Record 69% Oppose Afghanistan War
• US Congressman calls Pakistan ‘enemy’ of US, and Looks to Dismember the Country

Details:

Peter Schiff: Market-Crushing Treasury Collapse To Hit Around 2013:

Peter Schiff, the divisive investor and commentator that predicted the subprime/real-estate bubble, is forecasting a U.S. dollar and bond crisis over the next couple of years. Schiff blames intervened bond markets, where rates are artificially and excessively low, and expects the coming crisis to blow the 2008-9 financial crisis out of the water. There is little doubt that the Federal Reserve, with Chairman Ben Bernanke at the helm, is holding markets by the hand. Bernanke, himself a divisive figure, has done all he can to push interest rates lower, using quantitative easing and Operation Twist once nominal rates had hit the zero-range. While many believe ultra-loose monetary policy is dangerous, Schiff thinks it will lead to a catastrophic correction. “The more you delay it, the bigger it will be,” Schiff tells Forbes in a phone interview Tuesday, “so we need to raise interest rates during the recession to confront the inefficiencies.” Schiff, who runs Euro Pacific Capital and is seen by many as permanently bearish, argues that government-intervened bond markets are leading to massive distortions in capital allocation that have only been exacerbated as the Fed reacted to the last couple of recessions. The controversial investor and commentator expects a massive crash over the next two to three years as a bond market bubble, coupled with the U.S. dollar, collapses under the weight of excessive debt. Schiff, like PIMCO’s Bill Gross, doesn’t believe in the current deleveraging cycle. While households have reduced their leverage, government debt has ballooned on the back of stimulus programs, but, argued Schiff, the government’s debt is the people’s debt, thus overall leverage has actually increased.

French-Israeli Journalist Calls on Paris to Rein in Muslims:

Toulouse-born Avraham Azoulai, editor-in-chief of Le P’tit Hebdo, a publication that caters to French speaking Jews worldwide, held a news conference Sunday, calling upon the French government to crack down on Muslim violence and on French media to stop demonizing Israel. Anti-Israeli incitement in the French press has brought about anti-Semitism, he charged. “We do not ask them to be pro-Israeli,” he said of the French press, “but to stop inciting.” Azoulai had a message for the French government, calling on it to “rein in the Muslim clans.” A small percentage of the Muslims in France are “very violent” and the rest are influenced by the media, he explained. “They cannot hurt the IDF and Israel so instead of getting revenge on Israel, they go for the Jews, who cannot do anything.”

Tunisia constitution will not be Based on Islamic Law: Party:

Tunisia’s governing Islamist party said it will not support making sharia, or Islamic law, the main source of legislation in a new constitution and will maintain the secular nature of the state. Ennahda’s stance on an issue that has increasingly polarised the country since its January 2011 revolution was criticised by hardline Islamists who wanted full-blown sharia, but welcomed by secular parties. Ennahda, which emerged as the biggest party in Tunisia’s first democratic elections last year, said Monday it would keep the first article of the 1956 constitution in the new basic law now being drafted. The article enshrines the separation of religion and state, stating that: “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic and it is a republic.” “We are not going to use the law to impose religion,” Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi told journalists after the moderate Islamist party’s constituent committee voted to maintain the constitutional article by 52 votes to 12. The article, he added, “is the object of consensus among all sectors of society; preserving Tunisia’s Arab-Muslim identity while also guaranteeing the principles of a democratic and secular state.” Islam is Tunisia’s official religion and while the constitution stipulates the president should be a Muslim, the state is mostly secular. Some had voiced concern that Ennahda would seek to curb women’s rights and other liberties in an Arab country known for its progressive laws. But Ghannouchi said the Islamist party would not “introduce ambiguous definitions into the constitution that risk dividing the people”, adding that “many Tunisians do not have a clear image of sharia and erroneous practices in certain countries have aroused fear.”

US Poll: Record 69% Oppose Afghanistan War:

In the wake of controversies involving the burning of Qurans and a U.S. Army staff sergeant’s alleged murder of 17 Afghan civilians, support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped precipitously among the American public, a new survey shows. Indeed, 69 percent of respondents said that the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan, the highest ever measure since CBS News/New York Times started asking the question in 2009. In addition, a majority – 53 percent – said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, report the two news outlets. Only 23 percent believe that America is “doing the right thing” by fighting in Afghanistan, down from 36 percent in Nov. 2011. These perceptions appear to be led by the impression that the war is going quite poorly for the United States – 68 percent thought the war was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” a staggering rise from the 42 percent who believed this in November, the Times poll found. There was a general consensus among both Republicans and Democrats that the war is not proceeding well. Among Republicans, 60 percent said that the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 68 percent of Democrats. The difference when it comes to members of the two parties is that Republicans were more likely to want to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it would be necessary to stabilize the country’s condition: three in 10 said the U.S. should remain, compared with two in 10 independents and 1 in 10 Democrats. And within the Republican Party itself, voters are split over the issue of when to withdraw from Afghanistan. A plurality of Republicans, 41 percent, say that the U.S. should withdraw sooner than the planned withdrawal date in 2014, compared with only 28 who prefer the existing timetable and 29 percent who believe American troops should stay as long as it takes.

US Congressman calls Pakistan ‘enemy’ of US, and Looks to Dismember the Country:

US Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on Tuesday said that the Government of Pakistan was radical, and supported the Taliban, there by an enemy of the United States and freedom. Rohrabacher made these statements while addressing a press conference on the subject of Balochistan at the National Press Club. Reps. Steve King and Rep. Louie Gohmert, who were co-sponsors of his house concurrent resolution on the right of self-determination for Baloch, accompanied him at the press conference. Rep. Rohrabacher, who mispronounced Baloch as Bal-ook for the entirety of the press conference, dispelled allegations that he was being paid by a lobby or an individual for raising the cause of the Baloch people. He said that Pakistan was murdering women and children in Balochistan. He said that his trips to the region came from committee funds that were in turn financed by US taxpayers. In response to a question, he said that he has also raised the issue of human rights in Kashmir in the past, and said that certain people were purposely raising the issue of Kashmir to deflect attention from the issue of Balochistan. Rep. Rohrabacher, who is also the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, said that he was one of Pakistan’s best friends in the past. The US Congressman said, “Pakistan decided to be enemies of the US years ago.” He said that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan was sending money to radicals who hated the United States. He alleged that Pakistan has an “anti-American” relationship with China. Congressman Louie Gohmert said that Pakistan was not only supporting the Taliban, but was also terrorising the Baloch. He said that the Baloch people wanted the right to freedom. When asked about the statements by the Indian and US Government who have said that they support Pakistan’s territorial integrity, the Republican representative said that they are trying to change the US policy, and the Balochistan resolution was an effort to start a national debate on Balochistan.