2870. 🇲🇲 Myanmar Commemorates Tea Industry.

 

New issues -

🇲🇲 Myanmar Post -

26 February 2026 - Myanmar Tea - 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Myanmar Post from photographs by Thiha Lwin and lithographed by Wafi Security Printing Works, Myanmar and perforated 14. Rating:- *****.

🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -

21 February 2026 - Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day - 1 stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- ***.

Commonwealth countries not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2026 up until the end of February - 

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda

Australia Cocos (Keeling) Island

Australia Norfolk Island 

Australian Antarctic Territory 

Bahamas 

Barbados 

Belize

Bermuda 

Botswana 

British Antarctic Territory 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands 

Cameroon

Cayman Islands 

Cook Islands including Rarotonga 

Cook Islands Aitutaki

Cook Islands Penrhyn,

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus 

Dominica

Gabon

Ghana 

Gibraltar 

Grenada 

Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique 

Guernsey Sark

Guyana 

Jamaica 

Kenya

Kingdom of eSwatini

Kiribati 

Lesotho 

Malawi

Maldives 

Montserrat 

Mozambique 

Namibia 

Nauru

Nevis

New Zealand Ross Dependency 

Nigeria 

Niue

Papua New Guinea 

Pitcairn Islands 

Rwanda 

St Helena 

St Kitts/St Kitts Nevis

St Vincent and the Grenadines 

Samoa

Seychelles 

Sierra Leone 

Solomon Islands 

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands 

The Gambia

Togo

Tokelau 

Tonga

Tonga Niuafo’ou 

Trinidad and Tobago

Turks and Caicos Islands

Tuvalu 

Uganda 

United Republic of Tanzania 

Vanuatu 

Zambia

Therefore, at the end of February, 65 out of 88 (73.9%) of Commonwealth philatelic entities are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps.during 2026. This compares with 82.8% at end of January 2026 and 76.1% at the end of February 2025.

🇮🇴 British Indian Ocean Territory -

Back last summer, it seemed that the British Labour government, now deeply unpopular, had successfully signed away the islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory to the Republic of Mauritius along with agreeing to lease back from Mauritius the strategically important United States airforce base there for a sum of over £30 billion pounds. As a result I removed BIOT from my list of Commonwealth philatelic entities and prepared to close the pages of my BIOT stamp collection for good.

However all is not as straightforward as it seemed. BIOT remains a British Overseas Territory with the potential to issue stamps (though the UPU has taken it upon itself to say that only Republic of Mauritius stamps may be used on the Chagos and other islands of the BIOT) (of course Mauritius has no post office there). The treaty with Mauritius has yet to complete its passage through the British parliament and recently the self-appointed Chief Minister of the BIOT, Misley Mandarin, and other descendants of the most recent inhabitants of the Chagos, called Chagossians, who were expelled from the islands in the early 1970s following the decision of Harold Wilson’s Labour government to do so to enable the building of the US airbase, have landed on Peros Banos, their ancestral home, and have settled there. The British BIOT administration attempted to expel them but this move has, for the present, been rejected by the BIOT Supreme Court.

But it was not only the Mauritius government which has been interested in gobbling up these strategically placed islands which Starmer seems determined to give away but also, to the north, the Republic of Maldives, which views the immense area of sea, a potentially massive fishing area, has withdrawn Mauritius’ claim to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Consequently the Mauritius government broke off diplomatic relations with Maldives.

This story looks like it will run and run but for the moment we still have the BIOT as a continuing page in the stamp album.