New Issues -
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post -
7 July 2025 - Centenary of the Sri Lanka Medical Council - 1 stamp.Lithographed. Rating:- ***.
8 July 2025 - Bicentenary of coffee cultivation in Sri Lanka - 1 stamp and 1 miniature sheet containing the same stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- ***.
🇹🇱 Timor Leste to apply to join The Commonwealth -
It was reported recently that the President of Timor Leste, José Ramos-Horta, had confirmed on 5 June 2025 that his government was to apply for his country to be admitted to membership of The Commonwealth. This would follow on from Timor Leste’s admission to membership of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast South East Asian Nations. Ever since independence was granted by Indonesia to Timor Leste in 2002, when Australia Post donated the country’s first postage stamps to the newly independent state, it has been expected that Timor Leste would eventually join The Commonwealth. Further developments are awaited.
In anticipation of Timorese Commonwealth membership I have covered the new issues of Timor Leste’s postal administration in previous Blogs (see Blog 275) although there seems to have been no new issue since 31 October 2016 when the Timorese postal service released a joint issue with the Portuguese postal service to commemorate the Quincentenary of the arrival of the Portuguese in Timor Leste. The Timorese set was made up of two stamps.
Over the years, though not recently of course, Timor Leste’s postal service has released a number of joint issues with those of other Lusophone countries and on more than one occasion on the subject of AICEP, Associaçiäo Internacianal das Comunicaçöes de Expressào Portuguesa. An issue from 2012 which was part of a Lusophone minibus depicting important literary figures from various Lusophone countries commemorated Francesco Borja da Costa who was an important figure in the Timorese struggle for independence from Indonesia and who was martyred in that cause by the Indonesian colonialist regime.
There has recently been released a new AICEP-themed minibus issue which, as far as is known, involved participation by the postal services of Portugal, Cape Verde Islands, Macao and Brazil and which marked the 35th anniversary of AICEP. There has been no indication that the Timorese postal service also released a stamp as part of this minibus but it was several years before the Borja da Costa stamp became public knowledge so we may yet at some time in the future find that Timor Leste has indeed participated in this 2025 Lusophone minibus issue. That’s something for us all to look out for.
Also worth remaining vigilant about will be a possible stamp issue to commemorate Timor Leste’s admission to ASEAN later this year. Then again, like so many issues that could be released by countries similar to Timor Leste but never are, we may look but never find.
2025 AICEP issues from Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde Islands, and Macao:-
