The government’s commercial flight will be available for a charge. British nationals, their spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 are eligible to register.

Two government-chartered flights so far have returned British citizens from Muscat, Oman.

The first landed at Stansted airport on Friday, the second at Gatwick airport on Saturday. A third flight will leave Muscat on Sunday.

The Foreign Office said the Dubai flight will be in addition to commercial routes operating out of the UAE and will leave early next week.

The government says all passengers must hold a valid travel document and non-British dependants will require a valid visa or permission to enter or remain that was granted for more than six months.

The Foreign Office will contact people directly to issue them a ticket and will prioritise those who are vulnerable, such as those with urgent medical needs.

More than 160,000 people have registered their presence in the region with the Foreign Office.

Air travel via Dubai, one of the world’s busiest airports, has been severely disrupted since Iran began launching retaliatory strikes at Gulf nations in response to the US and Israel’s offensive.

Last week, Emirates briefly suspended all flights from Dubai, which is a popular tourist destination for UK nationals.

On Saturday, footage verified by the BBC showed what appeared to be a drone striking within the perimeter of Dubai International Airport.

The footage, filmed from an industrial area just south of the airport, captured an explosion close to a terminal building.

The UAE government has not commented on the incident.

Throughout the week, British people who have been stranded in the region have told the BBC about their experiences.

On 28 February, Victoria Cameron, from Larkhall in Scotland, was queuing to get into her Dubai hotel when the first Iranian missiles struck the city.

“Then the staff said ‘run, run, leave your suitcases’. They rushed us all to the side of the hotel.

“Our phones were going off, saying ’emergency, emergency’. We were crying, we were shaking.”

Cameron arrived back in Edinburgh on Wednesday on an Emirates airline flight.

Stuart Carson was staying at Fairmont The Palm Hotel in Dubai on Saturday when it was struck, causing his “whole room to completely shake”.

“Once dawn broke, we started to feel a bit more comfortable with the situation and just gathered our thoughts and had breakfast in the hotel,” he said.

He arrived back home in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, after a number of earlier flights he had booked were cancelled by airlines.

[BBC]

The party has a majority in directly elected seats in the general election counted so far, according to partial official results on Sunday, and could be heading for a landslide, official trends suggest.

The 35-year-old is also leading in the proportional representation vote count so far, according to the election commission.

For more than two decades, Nepal has seen a revolving door of coalition governments, largely dominated by three parties, two of them communist.

Ahead of this election, it looked set to test whether Gen Z voters had succeeded in convincing the rest of the country that it is time for a new, untested generation to shape their future, or whether veteran heavyweights – who have dominated for decades – would keep hold of power.

The country’s youth included 800,000 first-time voters, making them a key voter bloc.

Shah, who is popularly known as Balen, has been a member of the Nepali hip hop scene for several years, with one of his songs “Balidan” about sacrifice in the Nepali language cultivating millions of YouTube views.

In September 2025 unrest erupted in Nepal with so-called Gen Z demonstrations, triggered by Oli’s banning of social media platforms.

The demonstrations escalated with protesters criticising Nepal’s political system and the symbolism of class inequality “nepo babies” – children of the country’s politicians.

A total of 77 were killed during the protests, and a BBC investigation revealed the country’s police chief issued an order of lethal fire against thousands of unarmed protesters.

Shah spoke in support of the protesters and at one stage called Oli a “terrorist” who had betrayed his country.

The rapper typically shuns the media, but told the Financial Times while he was on the campaign trail he would be “the candidate for all of Nepal”.

Shah’s RSP released its manifesto in February which vowed to create 1.2 million jobs and reduce forced migration, in an effort to tap into frustration over unemployment and low wages that has pushed millions of Nepalis to move overseas.

The party has also pledged that within five years it would raise Nepal’s per capital income from $1,447 to $3,000, more than double the country’s economy to $100 billion GDP and provide safety nets such as healthcare insurance for the population.

[BBC]