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Roula Khalaf is an associate editor and Middle East editor of the Financial Times. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York.
Roula oversees the paper’s coverage of the Middle East region, its various bureaus and the newly launched Middle East edition. She writes regularly on Middle East politics and business. - -
Abbas hits out from the shadows
Mahmoud Abbas’s decision not to contest the next Palestinian presidential election is a reflection of how quickly and dramatically the hopes for peace that accompanied the election, a year ago, of US president Barack Obama have been extinguished, writes Roula Khalaf
Iran risks overplaying nuclear hand
Western powers might run out of patience with Tehran’s negotiating tactics and demand a complete end to the country’s uranium enrichment activities
IMF urges region to cut cloth to fit straitened times
Indicators such as oil prices and stock markets suggest a recovery is underway, writes Roula Khalaf. However, it will be some time until the effect is passed on to citizens in the form of eased lending conditions
Forgotten Yemen slides towards the brink
Anti-government violence in the north, a secession movement in the south and fugitive jihadis throughout the country, allied to failing oil production, mean the southern Gulf state is destabilising quickly
Iran wins engagement by obscuring intention
Despite its vagueness, Tehran’s proposal paper on its controversial nuclear programme to the UN Security Council has bought Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad a platform from which to address world leaders
Lebanon spoilers must end political paralysis
Three months after the parliamentary elections the country still has no government because of the intransigence of those who actually lost the June vote
The west struggles with Iran’s game
The election disaster has made the western ability to respond to Tehran’s moves trickier, writes Roula Khalaf. Inaction is dangerous because it could encourage Israel to launch a military adventure. Rushing to impose new sanctions, particularly on petrol imports, is also risky
Iran triggers a touch of hypocrisy
Western countries tend to ignore rigged elections in the Arab world that disadvantage Islamist parties, whereas Iran’s reformist opposition drew unqualified support
No time for Ahmadi-Nejad to relax
Having all but put down a popular uprising in support of Mir Hossein Moussavi, the Iranian regime will not – and should not – relax. Tehran may have declared the election crisis over. But it is not
Comment: Iran becomes another country
Given the people’s will to stand up for their rights and Ayatollah Khamenei’s refusal to compromise, the crisis may have caused irreparable damage to the Islamic Republic
