2347. 🇵🇰 Pakistan Post Honours Award Winner.

 New issues.

🇵🇰 Pakistan Post -

27 July 2023 - “Eve of the 75th year of Shahadat Captain Raja Muhammad Sardar Shaheed” (1st Nissan-e-Haider) - 1 stamp. Designed by “the customer” and lithographed by National Security Printing Company Karachi and perforated 13. Rating:- ***.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

Tweets (or Xs!) reporting Post and Go issues with additional one day only inscriptions commemorating visiting cruise ships - 

26 July 2029 - Visit of the Ambience -

28 July 2023 - Visit of the Mein Schiff -

Commonwealth news.

🇿🇼 There seems little chance of Zimbabwe rejoining The Commonwealth, which the former deposed President ‘Comrade’ Robert Mugabe took it out of in 2003, in the foreseeable future as its present president, Emerson Mnangagwa, allies it more and more with Putin’s Russia. At the recent Russia-Africa summit held in St Petersburg, Mnangagwa was one of only a handful of African heads of state (twelve out of 54) who chose to be present, joining the leaders of other pariah states such as Eritrea and the leaders of military regimes such as Russia’s close allies, Mali, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic. As a reward, after Russia had recommenced its policy of preventing the export of grain from the ports of Ukraine, which its military forces have invaded, partially occupied and are savaging brutally, Russia has announced that Zimbabwe will be one of only six of its poodle states to which it will donate a large supply of free grain (the others being Eritrea, Mali, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso and the failed state of Somalia).

Stamp-wise, Zimbabwe, whose economy is in dire straits, has not issued, as far as is known, any postage stamps since 15 February 2022 when 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing the 4 stamps were issued on the subject of the Cottage industries of Zimbabwe.

  Also shown at the head of this piece is the single stamp issued by the Russian postal service to commemorate the gathering of the African leaders in St Petersburg even though the turnout was not quite as full or as enthusiastic as Putin might have hoped for.

  Commonwealth countries represented at the meeting were Mozambique (represented by President Filipe Nyusi), South Africa (President Cyril Ramaphosa) and Uganda (President Yoweri Museveni), with the following sending lower ranking delegations - Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Seychelles, The Gambia and Ghana. 

Commonwealth countries and territories whose postal services are not known to have issues or have had issued on their behalf any legitimate postage stamps during 2023 up until the end of July - 

The list remains unchanged from that published at the end of June (see Blog 2334). This means that 33 out of 88 (37.5%) Commonwealth philatelic entities have not yer released, or had released on their behalf, any postage stamps so far during 2023. This compares with the figure of 42.5% at the end of July 2022. This figure of 37.5% may change somewhat in September when 8 Commonwealth Caribbean territories are due to participate in an omnibus issue commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Eastern Caribbean Bank