2826. 🇹🇷 🇮🇴 New Issues From Northern Cyprus; BIOT Not Dead Yet.

 

New issues -

🇹🇷 Postal service of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus -

12 November 2025 - Works by Northern Cyprus cartoonists - 4 stamps. Designed by Kustafa Camal Azizoğlu, Husain Mehmet Ulubatli, Çakmak and Alper Susuzlu and printed by Devlet Basimevi. Rating:- ***.

12 November 2025 - Chess in Northern Cyprus - 2 stamps. Designed by Gabriel Sönmezer and printed by Devlet Basimevi. Rating:- ***.

BIOT - Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

On 22 May 2025 I published this -

  On the basis of the belief that the issue was settled - the issue being that the British government would pay the Republic of Maurice £30 billion to take over the British Indian Ocean Territory - I removed the BIOT from my list of active Commonwealth philatelic entities. This turned out to be somewhat precipitate as the British Parliament still had to pass a bill to allow the government to lose the strategically important islands as well as the £30 billion it had promised to pay Mauritius where there was a considerable amount of pleasure voiced by the public there as the prime minister of Mauritius promised he would use it to cut taxes in Mauritius. 

  The descendants of the people who had lived in the Chagos Islands for 200 years, known as the Chagossians, who had been expelled from the Chagos Islands in the early 1970s by the British, were less pleased than the Mauritians because they would never be able to return to their ancestral homeland. It was a rare case of a colonial people wanting to continue with British rule. They mounted a heavy resistance to the bill which would deprive them of their homes and they were supported by the British opposition parties and other influential people. The bill to abandon the Chagos Islands did however make its way through the House of Commons and was then debated in the House of Lords where there was heavy resistance to it and the British government stepped back from attempting to take the final step. Today it has been announced that the bill will not be proceeded with until next year. 

  Therefore the British Indian Ocean Territory, for the present at least, continues to exist as a political entity though we do not expect to see any new stamps being released. I shall, however, return it to my list of philatelic entities until, and if, the bill to end the territory for ever is passed eventually.

BIOT - The present situation as one British commentator sees it.

2728. 🇮🇴 BIOT - Now A ‘Dead Country’.

End of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

🇮🇴 Postal service of the British Indian Ocean Territory -

22 May 2025 - The fate of the Chagos Islands including Diego Garcia, location of a large, strategically important United States Airforce base, was finally settled on this date when the British prime minister signed an agreement to hand over the territory which had been a British possession since the Napoleonic Wars to Mauritius, an ally of China, along with a sum of money amounting to £30 billion. This agreement was generally against the wishes of the former inhabitants or their descendants (known as the.Chagossians) who had been given no formal say in the fate of the islands. Hence, British Indian Ocean Territory ceased to be a philatelic entity and became what stamp collectors have long termed, “a dead country”. The last stamps of the BIOT were issued in 2021 and featured Angelfish. See also Blogs 2580, 2312, 2260 and 2695 (April 1 edition).

BIOT’s final stamp, 2021.

New issues -

🇱🇹 Stamperija (or affiliate) -

🇸🇱 Products inscribed Sierra Leone -

Stated ‘date of issue’, 15 January 2025 - Further to the reports in Blogs 2720 and 2721, additional numerous and expensive products have appeared with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them on the following subjects:- ‘Biodiversity of Africa treasures of the wild’, ‘Amazing species’, ‘Animal camouflage art’ and ‘Birds of Sierra Leone’. To give an idea of what some of these products look like, some ‘first day covers’ are depicted below. These products are not otherwise dealt with in any detail and as ever, caveat emptor.

2695. 🇮🇴 Trump To Annex BIOT And Create The US Indian Ocean Territory.

 

🇮🇴 While the British government continues to negotiate with that of Mauritius to persuade the latter to take the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean off its hands and to be good enough to receive £9 to £18 billion courtesy of the British taxpayer for the trouble of doing so, the somewhat unpredictable President of the United States, Trump, has indicated that he will cut through all this talking and annex the British Indian Ocean Territory to the USA and rename it the US Indian Ocean Territory and then no-one need bother about it any more.

This will enable the USA to ensure the security of the huge and strategically important US military base on Diego Garcia and make sure that the People’s Republic of China, to which Mauritius is a supplicant state, does not get its hands on the island. Trump also revealed that he intends to not only preserve the security of the military base on the island, but also establish a space vehicle launch facility on Diego Garcia as suggested by one of his political allies, Elon Musk.This was presaged, strangely, by a BIOT stamp issue of 2009 which depicted the launch of Apollo 11 and other stamps depicting American spacecraft and a miniature sheet with an American flag planted on the moon just as Trump now intends to plant a Stars and Stripes on the BIOT. 

  We can only speculate at the moment as to whether Trump’s planned annexation of BIOT will result in a ‘new country’ - the USIOT - finding its way into the stamp catalogues but it may well be that this newly named territory will indeed have its own stamps when a new postal service is established there.

 Trump has also stated that he may well annex the Falkland Islands to prevent Britain and Argentina from ever feeling the need to go to war with each other again and to make it easier for Americans to go on holiday in the Caribbean he will probably take over Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands and Montserrat. The British government is said to be having talks with Trump’s officials on how these transfers of sovereignty can be completed smoothly. No consultation with local populations is felt necessary as Trump feels everyone who lives on these islands will be much better off under American sovereignty.

Reported - 1 April 2025.

2580. 🇮🇴 The End Of The British Indian Ocean Territory.

 

The United Kingdom To Hand Over British Indian Ocean Territory To Mauritius.

3 October 2024 -

There will be no more stamps inscribed British Indian Ocean Territory. On 3 October 2024 the British government announced that it had agreed to hand over its overseas territory made up of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. In 1965 the islands which included the Outer islands of Seychelles including Aldabra, Farquhar, Cosmoledo and Desroches and the Chagos Islands, including the atoll of Diego Garcia,  which had always been British sovereign territory since the 18th century but had been administered from the then British colony of Mauritius, were all combined to form the British Indian Ocean Territory.

  The outer Seychelles islands were included in the Republic of Seychelles when it became independent in 1976. Meanwhile, in preparation for the building of a giant United States-United Kingdom base on Diego Garcia, the British shamefully expelled the Chagossians from the remaining islands where their families had lived since the 18th century and they were moved either to Mauritius or to Britain.

  The giant base was built and mail services were operated by the US and British military postal services but to provide a postal service initially for the local inhabitants until they were expelled and then afterwards for the necessary civilian workers on Diego Garcia, a BIOT postal service was inaugurated and the first postage stamps released on 17 January 1968 in the form of overprints on the contemporary Seychelles definitive set. This issue was replaced by stamps with bespoke designs released on 23 October 1968 using artwork of local marine life by a former resident, Mrs Veevers-Carter.

  After the granting of Seychelles independence in 1976 issues ceased but were re instituted on 3 May 1990 to serve the mail needs of the base’s civilian workers and this resulted in a new issue to mark the London 1990 International Philatelic Exhibition which was released on 3 May 1990. A new definitive issue depicting local birds was also released on the same date and subsequently 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet depicting the flag, arms and map of the territory were issued on 8 November 1990.

  After the recommencement of BIOT stamps, the government of Mauritius found it opportune to claim the territory as its sovereign territory though Chagos had never been part of the possessions of Mauritius as the Agalega Islands and Rodrigues had been. The weight of ‘anti colonialist’ opinion grew against the United Kingdom and eventually after a United Nations General Assembly resolution of 22 June 2017, the International Court of Justice ruled on 25 February 2019 that the United Kingdom was under an obligation to bring its administration in the Chagos to an end and that the islands should never had been separated from Mauritius (choosing to ignore that Chagos had never been part of Mauritius).

  Subsequently, the Universal Postal Union ruled effectively on 24 August 2021 that stamps inscribed British Indian Ocean Territory should no longer be recognised as valid for use on international mail. Subsequently no further BIOT stamps were issued. The final issue was a miniature sheet containing 6 different stamps featuring angelfish which was released just days before the UPU’s ruling on 8 June 2021.

  The new UK-Mauritius agreement for the transfer of sovereignty includes continuing operation of the US-UK base for an “initial period of 99 years” and Mauritius’ enactment of resettlement of the Chagos Islands other than Diego Garcia. Inevitably the United Kingdom will pay a package of financial support to Mauritius including annual payments and infrastructure support. Importantly, the USA president, Biden, whose catastrophic reaction to the Taliban assault on Kabul allowed the overthrow of the Afghan government and the reassertion of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, is supporting the transfer of sovereignty, calling it a “historic deal” and presumably this agreement with Mauritius which has close links with communist China has been signed off by the American military leaders who have long been queasy about the cession of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The Indian government may also feel nervous about a Chinese ally getting its hand on Chagos and the vast expanse of ocean surrounding the islands.

  Regardless of all this international power play, philatelists now have a new ‘dead country’ as we say farewell to the stamps of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

2531. 🇬🇬 Guernsey Post To Commemorate Royal Visit.

Revised Guernsey Post new issue programme will include Royal Visit stamps.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

Guernsey Post will release a miniature sheet on 9 October 2024 to commemorate the Royal Visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the island which will take place on 16 July 2024. This is an addition to Guernsey Post’s previously published new issues programme. The King and Queen will also visit Jersey on the previous day, 15 July 2024, but I have not yet seen any news from Jersey Post saying that it too will release a commemorative issue related to the Royal Visit to that island though I doubt that Jersey Post would miss the chance to release a philatelic item to mark the first visit of the King and Queen to the Channel Islands.

Jersey Post press release on day of Royal Visit, 15 July 2024.

Interestingly, Guernsey Post’s issue is scheduled to be released on World Post Day and on the same day 4 stamps will be issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations agency which has taken it on itself to proscribe the stamps of the British Indian Ocean Territory claiming that the Chagos Islands are an integral part of the republic of Mauritius.

On the subject of Royal Visits it has been confirmed that the King and Queen will visit Australia and Samoa in October 2024 so that the King can attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Samoa from 21 to 25 October.

We may well expect stamps related to the visits. The Australian government has recently released official Australian photographs of Their Majesties, who of course are King and Queen of Australia, and it is likely that these may be used for future Australia Post stamp issues, perhaps even on an issue to commemorate the Royal Visit later this year. The photographs are credited to Millie Pilkington 2024.

Previously, Samoa Post is known to have last issued postage stamps in 2022 but these were surcharges, some of them of very high face value, and other surcharges had been produced and issued in years previous to 2022 but the last stamp produced with a distinctive design and with the name of Samoa printed on it was stated to have been released on 30 December 2016 by the ‘boutique’ philatelic agency (as it likes to call itself) , Philatelic Collector Inc. New issues then ceased because Samoa Post fell out with Philatelic Collector Inc over the release of the surcharges mentioned above and seven and half years have now passed without a Samoan commemorative stamp being issued. It must be doubtful therefore that Samoa Post will see that the issue of a stamp to celebrate the Royal Visit and the hosting of CHOGM is a good way of drawing attention to this small country and enhancing its international reputation but on the other hand the events may just prove a good enough reason for Samoa Post to once more release a new stamp issue. We must wait to see.

New issues -

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Post -

26 July 2024 - “Support to the delegation of Team Hong Kong, China to Paris 2024” - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 4 stamps. Designed by Chan ching-tsui and lithographed by Enschedé and perforated 13.5. Rating:- **.

2312. 🇬🇧🇲🇺 Are We Approaching The End Of The BIOT?

 

🇬🇧🇲🇺 British newspaper reports US-UK tension as UK negotiates handover of BIOT to Chinese ally, Mauritius.

  Stamp collectors are probably more aware than most of the existence of the British Indian Ocean Territory which is home to the vital US military base on Diego Garcia as well as other islands of the Chagos Archipelago. The territory was established on 8 November 1965 from British islands which had been administered previously from Seychelles and Mauritius.

  Postage stamps were first issued for the territory on 17 January 1968 in the form of overprints (B.I.O.T.) on contemporary Seychelles stamps and a set of stamps with bespoke designs based on drawings by Mrs W Veevers Carter depicting local marine life was released later in the year on 23 October.

  When the Republic of Seychelles achieved independence in 1976 some BIOT islands including Aldabra, Farquhar, Cosmoledo and Assumption were transferred from BIOT to be included in the newly independent state. Chagos remained part of BIOT under the continuing British sovereignty which had existed since 1814 when the French had ceded the islands to the British Crown. In 1971 work began on the construction of an important United States military base on Diego Garcia and this base took on enormous importance for the Western Alliance with the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1973 and then the rise of Chinese attempts to influence and subjugate to Chinese will the various island states of the Indian Ocean and further away in the Pacific.

  In the course of preparing islands for the construction of the base, the British Labour government of Harold Wilson disgracefully forcibly deported all the Chagos Islanders to Mauritius, Seychelles and Britain.

  The waters of the region of the Chagos are an important area for fishing which the Mauritian government considered might be a valuable resource for the republic and decided upon getting its hands on it and with that in mind, claims of Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Islands were made despite the British Crown’s sovereignty established in 1814 and regardless of the British government having paid the then British colony of Mauritius £3 million at the time of the establishment of BIOT. Eventually the issue was taken to the United Nations which sought the opinion of the International Court of Justice which ruled in favour of the Mauritian government.

  Latterly, in August 2021, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) ruled that postage stamps inscribed British Indian Ocean Territory would not be registered, distributed or transmitted by that organisation and that only stamps of the Republic of Mauritius would be valid for use in or from Chagos (although there were no Mauritian post offices there). The British government appears to have acknowledged that announcement as no BIOT stamps have been issued since then.

  In December 2022 the British Foreign Secretary talked about ongoing Anglo-Mauritian negotiations on the future sovereignty of Chagos and the UK’s Foreign Office has recently stated, “The UK and Mauritius have held three rounds of constructive negotiations over the sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory/Chagos Archipelago”. Following this a British national newspaper has published an article reporting growing tension between the United States and Britain about the future of the Diego Garcia base and the USA’s concerns about handing Chagos sovereignty over to the Mauritians who have a close relationship with the People’s Republic of China (a relationship proudly celebrated by Mauritius Post on a number of postage stamps issued in recent years). There are fears that if Mauritius takes control of the islands, Diego Garcia may well end up as a Chinese base.

  The process of transferring BIOT to Mauritian sovereignty will clearly not be an overnight process but it does seem that the British Foreign Office and the current government are now set on achieving that as a final goal and the territory known as British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. It also seems very likely that no more postage stamps inscribed ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’ will appear - King Charles III will never be featured on a BIOT stamp. Which seems a little sad to me at least.

  Of course the Chagossians may find that they at last are allowed to return home to their ancestral islands though they may be wise not to build their hopes up too much. The government of Mauritius has used them as one of its arguments to claim sovereignty over Chagos but they are largely irrelevant to the Mauritian claim and whether or not a US base remains on Diego Garcia or is replaced by a Chinese establishment, neither powers are going to want a lot of troublesome native Chagossians in the near vicinity.

  It seems unlikely that there would ever be any postage stamps inscribed ‘Chagos Islands’ since the present Mauritian government wishes to include the territory as an integral part of the Republic Of Mauritius and it has never issued stamps for other distant islands such as Rodrigues or the Agalega Islands and so only stamps inscribed ‘Mauritius’ would be used there even if the Mauritians bothered to establish a postal service for the islands (which seems unlikely as postal services become more and more irrelevant to the functioning of 21st century society).

  So, we may already have added the final page to our BIOT collections and the territory has already become another one of those philatelic ‘dead countries’.

Diego Garcia

 

Diego Garcia

2260. 🇮🇴 No New Issues Planned For BIOT, Mail System ‘On Hold Status’

 

New issues.

🇮🇳 India Post -

1 March 2023 - 75th anniversary of Central Base Post Office - 1 stamp. Rating:- ****.

🇮🇴 British Indian Ocean Territory postal service.

   In response to an enquiry from this Blog about whether any new stamp issues were planned in the foreseeable future and in particular any new stamps to commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth II or any related to the the succession of King Charles III either commemorative or definitive the following reply was received -

“The BIOT mailing system is temporarily on hold status. However you can still purchase BIOT stamps on our website as souvenirs. There is no new issue of stamps until further notice”.

There therefore seems no prospect of any BIOT new issues in the foreseeable future and furthermore there is no operating postal system serving the territory.

Commonwealth countries and territories whose postal services are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps so far during 2023 -

Aitutaki Cook Islands

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda 

Australian Antarctic Territory 

Barbados 

Belize 

Bermuda 

Botswana 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

Brunei Darussalam

Cameroon 

Cayman Islands 

Cocos (Keeling) Islands Australia

Cook Islands 

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus 

Dominica

eSwatini

Gabon

The Gambia

Ghana

Jamaica

Kenya 

Kiribati 

Lesotho 

Malawi 

Maldives 

Mauritius 

Montserrat 

Nauru 

Nevis

Nigeria 

Niuafo’ou Tonga

Niue

Papua New Guinea 

Penrhyn Cook Islands 

Pitcairn Islands 

Ross Dependency 

Rwanda 

St Helena

St Kitts 

Saint Lucia

St Vincent and The Grenadines 

Samoa 

Seychelles

Solomon Islands 

South Africa

Togo

Tokelau 

Tonga

Trinidad and Tobago 

Turks And Caicos Islands 

Uganda 

United Republic of Tanzania 

Vanuatu

Zambia

By the end of February therefore, 55 out of 88 (%) Commonwealth philatelic entities remained on the list. This compares with 55 at the end of February 2022.

2027. 🇮🇴 🇬🇦 Mauritius Flag Flies Over Chagos; Gabon To “Join Commonwealth This Year”.

 

 Current events.

🇮🇴 There have been new developments in the ongoing Gilbert and Sullivan-like saga in which two Commonwealth members are at loggerheads with each other over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean which make up the British Overseas Territory of British Indian Ocean Territory, uninhabited islands - though inhabited until the British Labour government expelled the inhabitants in the 1960s to enable the building of an enormous military base on the largest island of Diego Garcia - which have been under British rule from 4 May 1786 when a British expedition of the East India Company, including the ships Admiral Hughes, Drake, Viper and Experiment, carrying Richard Price as Resident of Diego Garcia ‘took formal possession of Diego Garcia and all its dependencies in the name of King George III for the use of the Honourable Company”.

  Some Frenchmen were on Diego Garcia at the time and drew the colonisers’ attention to their presence but the British chose to ignore their protest noting that the French presence there amounted to no more than “a dozen huts of the meanest appearance”. However the British doubted that a new colony on the island would have little chance of viability and accordingly the Bombay Council decided in August 1786 “to withdraw the settlement from Diego Garcia” and in October of that year the British settlers which included bricklayers, carpenters, coopers, butchers, bakers, doctors and tailors as well as soldiers, all departed from the island leaving a British survey ship under Lieutenant Archibald Blair to finish its mapping of the Chagos Islands.

   The French then turned up and left a stone claiming the islands for France and later French businesses set up on the island to establish a copra industry. Soon afterwards Britain and France found themselves fighting each other in the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the British captured Mauritius, Rodrigues and Reunion which were surrendered by the French on 3 December 1810 with the capitulation stating that it applied to “The Isle Of France (Mauritius) and all its dependencies to the arms of His Britannic Majesty”. Diego Garcia and Chagos are not named in the capitulation but British sovereignty over them is deemed to have been reasserted since then. This was confirmed by The Treaty of Paris of May 1814 which ceded “Mauritius and all its dependencies … to the dominion of the British Crown”. Note that all the territories taken to include Chagos were ceded to the British Crown and not to Mauritius and that Chagos, though not named, was deemed to be a dependency of Mauritius and not an integral part of it.

  As territory ceded to the British Crown in 1814 then, the British government with the assent of the monarch, was entitled to establish The Chagos Islands as a separate territory rather than a dependency ruled from, but not by, Mauritius (2158 km distance from Diego Garcia) which is what happened with the establishment of the BIOT on 8 November 1965. Initially they were combined with islands such as Aldabra and Farquhar which had been an integral part, not a dependency, of the colony of Seychelles but these were returned to Seychelles on 28 June 1976 when the islands became an independent republic within The Commonwealth.

  In recent years the now independent Republic of Mauritius, has found the idea of possession of the Chagos Islands to be an attractive prospect because of the vast amount of potentially lucrative fishing that could be carried out in the area boosting the republic’s revenues enormously. Unfortunately another Commonwealth republic, Maldives, has its eyes set on the same target and so it has become vital for Mauritius to firstly claim the islands and their surrounding seas as part of the Republic of Mauritius and secondly to obtain international recognition for its claims which the international community has generally found it convenient to do. Hence, as reported in Blog 1492 the International Court supported Mauritius in its legal action to claim Chagos and then, as philatelists know well, the Universal Postal Union announced preposterously that only stamps of the Republic of Mauritius may be used on mail originating in Chagos even though no Mauritian post office exists in the islands.

  The next significant act by the Mauritian government to draw attention to its claim on Chagos has been taking place over the past few days whereby a Mauritian ‘scientific expedition’ has visited the islands taking with it Mauritian government ministers and lawyers and members of the press as well a few of the descendants of some of the unfortunate Chagossians who were so appallingly treated in 1965 when they were expelled from their homes. The ever-cynical press had a merry time recording the moving and emotional arrival of the Chagossians on the island of Peros Banhos, filming them on heir knees kissing the sand as they landed on the island and as they visited the derelict buildings which their parents and grandparents had so cruelly been forced to abandon 57 years previously. One woman returning for the first time since she was expelled from her home as a child recounted the way she had been forced to leave and that her dog had been shot by those involved in the eviction. The expulsion of the innocent Chagossians was undoubtedly one of the most disgraceful acts of any British government in modern times. 

  Having got maximum gain from the telling of the Chagossians’ sad stories the Mauritian officials then went on to claim Chagos as part of the Republic of Mauritius and underscored the point and gained maximum propaganda points by raising the Mauritian national flag for the first time ever on Peros Banhos itself. Of course, if they had been really clever, they would have taken a table with them with some envelopes, Mauritian stamps and a canceller and claimed it to be the first Mauritian post office in Chagos and prepared special covers with a ‘Peros Banhos, Republic Of Mauritius’ postmark -imagine the publicity that would have received.

  Doubtless all this melodrama will eventually lead to real philatelic consequences. I expect that BIOT stamps will continue to appear though presently it seems that the British government and its agents there may be holding back from releasing more new issues for the foreseeable future to allow the heated atmosphere of Anglo-Mauritian relations to cool down. In the meanwhile the unfortunate Chagossians have once more been used by parties with their own particular interests which rate higher to them than the continuing distress of the Chagossians.

🇬🇦 Meanwhile more news which may affect what appears in an ongoing collection of Commonwealth stamps. As reported in Blog 1938, President Ali Bongo Ondimba of the Francophone African state of Gabon who has been on poor terms with the French government in Paris, stated in 2021 that he is intending to take his country into membership of The Commonwealth. He reinforced this intention by announcing in a locally televised speech on 3January 2022 that “Gabon will become the 55th member of The Commonwealth in 2022”. He clearly expects the country’s membership to be approved at the twice delayed Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference (CHOGM) scheduled now to be held in Kigali in Rwanda during the week of 20 June 2022.

  In his speech President Bongo stated that “This is a major turning point for our country” and that joining such a multi-cultural group would be “promising” for Gabon.

  From the philatelic point of view, adding Gabon to a Commonwealth collection would not pose too much of a problem since its  postal service generally pursues a highly conservative new issue policy

2000. Commonwealth Stamps Review Of 2021.

 

Here is a review of the Commonwealth events and anniversaries in 2021 which usually had philatelic consequences and which are worth noting as the world continued to try to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic -  

2 February 🇬🇧 Death of centenarian charity fund raiser, Major Sir Tom Moore, who became a British icon during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Royal Mail refused to issue a stamp to commemorate this British hero but later in the year announced that a design competition for schoolchildren was to be held on the subject of Heroes of the Pandemic. It is possible that one of the designs will feature ‘Captain Tom’. The set will be released on 23 March 2022.

17 March 🇧🇩 Birth Centenary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Father figure of Bangladesh. Throughout the year numerous commemoratives were released to commemorate this important anniversary.

9 April 🇬🇧 Death of The Duke Of Edinburgh (consort of Queen Elizabeth II) at the age of 99, a couple of months before his 100th birthday. Stamps from various Commonwealth philatelic entities planned to commemorate his birthday were substituted by more sombre stamps which looked back on his life.

21 April 🇬🇧 95th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. Many stamp issues from around The Commonwealth were released.

27 April 🇸🇱 60th anniversary of Sierra Leone’s independence. So far no related commemoratives are known to have been issued by its postal service. There was good news in that the vast number of products produced in the country’s name by the notorious agency Stamperija appeared to have ceased.

17 May 🇬🇮 Royal Gibraltar Post Office felt it necessary to issue a Cryptocurrency stamp in a limited edition miniature sheet linked to a “block chain-based digital collectable” or “non-fungible token” counterpart (please don’t ask me to explain).

26 May 🇲🇿 The government of Mozambique abolished the national postal service, Correios de Moçambique, on the grounds that it was uneconomic to run. The day before the announcement,  Stamperija sneaked out a lot of expensive stamp issues including a number dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

23 June 🇰🇼 The 60th anniversary of the independence of Kuwait after Great Britain gave up its protectorate over the country. The country’s Post Office issued 2 stamps to commemorate the anniversary.

26 - 27 June - 🇷🇼 The meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) due to take place on these dates  in Kigali in Rwanda was postponed for a second time because of the ongoing pandemic.

24 July - 19 August. 🇦🇺🇧🇲 Delayed 2020 Olympic Games held in Tokyo.Australia Post, as usual, issued stamps to commemorate all of its gold medal winners while a Bermuda triathlete, Flora Duffy, won the territory’s first ever gold medal and was subsequently commemorated by a stamp issue.

15 August - 🇧🇭 50th anniversary of the Independence of Bahrain after Great Britain gave up its protectorate over the country. There is no news of any stamp issue having been released by the country’s postal service to commemorate the event.

21 August, 🇦🇫 Probably the most important event of the year, the fall of Kabul as Taliban forces invaded the city following the sudden abandonment of Afghanistan by US forces under orders from the disastrous US President Biden. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was forced to flee the country as Taliban forces closed in on the presidential palace precipitating widespread panic among the people with many wishing to follow Ghani’s example and escape from the country and the threat of rule by terrorists. British troops assisted in the mass evacuation of the terrified inhabitants from Kabul airport. Afghan Post’s final stamp of the Islamic Republic period had been issued earlier in the year to commemorate Tetsu Nakamura’s humanitarian work in the country.

22 August 🇮🇶 Centenary of the Accession of King Faisal I to the throne of Iraq by which the country became a Kingdom under a League of Nations Mandate belonging to Great Britain. The postal service of Iraq issued a stamp and a miniature sheet to commemorate the centenary.

27 August  🇮🇴 The Congress of the Universal Postal Union held in Abidjan in Côte D’Ivoire decided that the stamps of the British Indian Ocean Territory should no longer be registered, distributed and transmitted by the UPU and that only the stamps of the Republic of Mauritius should be used on mail from Diego Garcia and The Chagos Islands though that pronouncement failed to recognise that there was no functioning Mauritian post office in the islands.

3 September - 🇶🇦 Fiftieth anniversary of the achievement of Independence of Qatar after Great Britain gave up its protectorate over the country. The country’s postal service has so far not issued any stamps to commemorate the anniversary.

9 November 🇸🇭🇬🇧🇬🇸🇸🇭 The postal services of four UK Overseas territories, Ascension Island, British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands and Tristan Da Cunha, participated in an omnibus issue commemorating the Blue Belt Programme whereby the British government helps the territories to develop programmes to protect their territorial waters. Each territory issued 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet.

11 November - 🇿🇦 Death of former President of South Africa, FW De Klerk, last Head of State of South Africa who was a leader of the apartheid regime but who played an important role in negotiating with Nelson Mandela the end of white rule in the country and the establishment of democracy there.

20 November - 🇵🇳 After a long break, the first stamps to be issued by the postal service of Pitcairn Islands under the direction of its new philatelic agents, Tower Mint, were released commemorating the 95th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.

30 November - 🇧🇧 Barbados became a Republic within The Commonwealth on the 45th anniversary of its independence from The United Kingdom. Dame Sandra Mason, the former Governor General, became the first President of the Republic. The Ceremony marking the enD of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II in Barbados was attended by The Prince Of Wales. Surprisingly no commemorative stamps were issued by the Barbados postal service to celebrate this landmark event in the nation’s history.

2 December - 🇦🇪 50th anniversary of the achievement of Independence of The Trucial States after Great Britain gave up its protectorate over them. Six of the seven territories united to form The United Arab Emirates and the country’s postal service issued 1 stamp and 8 miniature sheets to commemorate the anniversary.

9 December - 🇹🇿 60th anniversary of the Independence of Tanganyika. No news yet of any stamps having been released to commemorate the anniversary but it is possible than such an issue has been released by the postal service of Tanzania. 

26 December - 🇿🇦 The death was announced of the former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, who was an important campaigner against apartheid in South Africa and who headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the introduction of majority rule in the country which helped to ensure a peaceful transition period in South Africa. After conflict in the Solomon Islands he was called upon to carry on a similar role in that small Pacific nation. Expect to see many stamps in his honour during 2022.

Happy new year!