2751. 🇹🇱 Timor Leste Will Apply To Join The Commonwealth.

 

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:-

2689. 🇧🇩 Bangladesh Commemorates Uprising Of July 2024.

 

New Issues -

🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -

30 December 2024 - Festival of Youth - 1 stamp. Lithographed by The Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Rating:- ***.

9 February 2025 - The July Uprising which led to the overthrow of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina - 1 stamp. Lithographed by Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Rating:- *****. A modest stamp commemorating a highly significant historical event.

19 February 2025 - Mother Language Day - 1 stamp. Designed by Md Boni Adam and lithographed by Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd, Gazipur. Perforated 12.5. Rating:- **.

Trump and The Commonwealth.

  There has been a lot of nonsense published in the press in the past day or so about the President of the United States, Trump, expressing the view that he would like his country to become an Associate Member of The Commonwealth. This idea is said to have arisen from the suggestion that the Royal Commonwealth Society has issued a secret invitation for The United States to take on such a role. The Royal Commonwealth Society is not the sort of organisation that can issue invitations to countries to join The Commonwealth; there is no ‘Associate Membership’ status in The Commonwealth: The King is not in a position to invite countries to join The Commonwealth - it is necessary for all 56 Member States together to extend an invitation to join and when the United States President is talking about an important Commonwealth country such as Canada becoming the 51st state of the USA very much against its citizens’ will, then these reports are clearly nothing short of Trumpery moonshine.

  All this fake news, to use Trump’s own expression, comes as the United States Postal Service has announced that it intends to issue a sheetlet of 15 self-adhesive stamps showing battlefields of the rebellion against the British Crown which began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord fought on 19 April 1765, 250 years ago. Trump claims to admire King Charles III rather more than his predecessors seem to have admired King George III.

Post scriptum - a comment from Ian/Norvic which I accidentally deleted - 

2680. 🇨🇦 Commonwealth Day 2025. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

 

  Commonwealth Day this year occurs today on Monday 10 March. Each year, a theme is adopted and this year’s is ‘Together We Thrive’ and this assertion of mutual support may prove more necessary than the official who came up with the catchphrase might have expected if the dangerously preposterous Trump acts to make Canada the 51st state of the United States, which he has vowed to do. Canada’s neighbour’s unpredictably loopy leader has thrown Ukraine to the Russian wolves, is drooling at the prospect of taking over Greenland, a self-governing part of sovereign Denmark, and wants to turn Gaza into a cross between Las Vegas and the French Riviera under American control and therefore this year’s expression of the aspiration that Commonwealth territories should be ‘together’ to ‘thrive’ might be more demanding than the leaders of the fifty six Commonwealth countries expect, especially in the case of Canada. 

  Trump’s imperialist actions or future actions, if he carries them through, are likely to be devastating for the free world and we may well see its effects in future stamp issues. The subjects featured on ongoing new stamp issues continue to provide an ever lengthening tapestry of modern world history and although the medium-term future of new issue releases looks more and more doubtful, for the moment at least, events, the actions of arrogant men full of hubris such as Trump and Putin, and the changes in the fate of nations will continue to be detailed on postage stamps which makes stamp collecting a more significant hobby than most people in this modern age would credit for..

  Meanwhile Canadian stamps remind us that the Americans attempted to invade Canada during the War of 1812 and were roundly defeated. It might be a good time for Canada Post to issue more stamps to commemorate Canada’s successful expulsion and remind Trump of what he would be up against (and that’s the War where the British burned down the White House!). See Blog 220.

  Meanwhile Charles III remains King of Canada by the consent of the people of Canada.Together we thrive.

New issues -

🇲🇹 MaltaPost -

4 April 2025 - Domestic cats, second issue - 4 stamps. Designed by Andrew Micallef and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Total face value €3.56. Illustrations awaited.

🇮🇳 India Post -

March 2025 - 25th anniversary of the National Innovation Foundation, My Stamp, personalised stamp with attached label sold by India Post in sheets of 12 at a premium price.

2597.🇬🇬 🇫🇰 Royal Visit To Guernsey; Seeing The Sights Of Stanley.

 

New issues -

🇫🇰 Falkland Islands postal service -

5 December 2024 - Sights of Port Stanley - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Bee Design from photographs taken by Simon Verrechia, June Yobhel Pantaleon, Luz Irene Andrino and Tim Underwood and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Production coordinated by Creative Direction. Thanks to Isle of Man Stamps for information about this issue. Rating:- *****.

🇮🇳 India Post -

23 October 2024 - Bicentenary of Kittur Vijayotsava, Indian resistance to the British East India Company - 1 stamp. Rating:- ****.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

14 November 2024 - Commemoration of the Royal Visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Guernsey on 16 July 2024 (the date of issue is also the date of the King’s 75th birthday) - 1 miniature sheet containing 2 different stamps. Designed by Bridget Yabsley and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13 x 13.5. Rating:- *****.

  The King and Queen are presently visiting Samoa to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting as mentioned in Blog 5595 and this occasion has resulted in some excellent photographs of the King which would make excellent illustrations for future stamp issues. Here are some of my favourites:-

and at the opening of the Commonwealth Conference - 

The Conference was also attended by King Mswati III of eSwatini -

  Finally, a photograph captured the unhappy face of the recently elected prime minister of the United Kingdom who after just three months in the role is enormously unpopular and here at the Commonwealth Meeting looked isolated, ignored, unloved, uncomfortable, out of place and terribly pale. A fish out of water. It seems unlikely that he will be around long enough to attend the next CHOGM to be held in two years time in Antigua And Barbuda. Although that may be true of many of the politicians who attend these conferences - here today, gone tomorrow. Still, at least he’s got a mention here.

2595. 🇼🇸 Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting, Samoa.

 

  🇼🇸 Following a very successful royal visit to Australia where he was welcomed by enthusiastic crowds, although insulted on one occasion by an Aborigine senator, King Charles III  has now arrived with Queen Camilla in Samoa to pay a state visit and fulfill his role as Head of The Commonwealth and attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) in Apia. This meeting has the theme, “One resilient common future: transforming our Common Wealth”.

  The meeting will be attended by representatives of the 56 member states of The Commonwealth but it is worth noting that many countries now view the organisation as being of trivial importance, which it probably is, as notable heads of government such as those of India and South Africa have chosen to attend a meeting of the BRICs nations held by the Russian dictator, Putin, in Kazan in Russia rather than board planes to head for the distant Pacific to attend a minor event in Samoa.

  The history of the various CHOGMs and stamp issues related to them have previously been covered in Blogs 2531, 2207, 2103, 2101, 1689, and 1209. The Samoan postal service has not released any postage stamps other than scarce and expensive surcharges since 30 December 2016 and it seems unlikely that it will release any commemorative stamps related to CHOGM though for a small country a visit by all these heads of government or their deputies could be considered to be a significant event worthy of philatelic recognition.

  The Commonwealth, now in its 75th tired year, is rather like postage stamps - both are of little or no relevance to this present world and the people who live in it - but as both move through their twilight years, for the present at least I will continue to cover news about them in this Blog.

King Charles & the Samoan prime minister, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa

2466. Commonwealth Day 2024.

 

  Commonwealth Day falls this year on Monday 11 March and just like every other year, has a theme to it which in 2024 is “One Resilient Common Future: Transforming Our Common Wealth”. The Commonwealth Secretariat in London puts out a logo every year to go alongside the theme and that for 2024 depicts a great green tree with spreading roots and branches and a stout trunk. 

  The Secretariat also releases various items to educate those interested in just what is The Commonwealth - one item for instance identifies that The Commonwealth has 2.5 billion humans living in its combined member states and that 60% of them are aged under 30 years -

  There’s also a map of The Commonwealth identifying the 56 member states which highlights just how much of the earth’s surface the organisation spreads across - 

  It may well be the case that the hole in the map in Southern Africa which is occupied by Zimbabwe may be filled in by autumn of this year if the speculation is correct that the country will be readmitted to membership of The Commonwealth in time to enable its representatives to attend the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) to be held in Samoa starting on 21 October.

The announcement that Samoa will host the 2024 CHOGM - the Secretary General of The Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, the present Chair of The Commonwealth, President Paul Kigame of Rwanda and the Samoan prime minister, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa:-

  This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the modern Commonwealth when the heads of government of what was then just eight Commonwealth countries - United Kingdom represented by the socialist Attlee who had defeated Sir Winston Churchill (who will be commemorated by Royal Mail later this year) in an election in 1945, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India and Ceylon - met in London to sign the London Declaration whereby India, despite becoming a republic, would continue as a full Commonwealth member. This anniversary might have been worthy of a stamp issue itself but Royal Mail has more important bacon to fry this year with an issue marking the 20th anniversary of Peppa Pig. 

The eight Commonwealth leaders meet with King George VI  at a meeting held in London from 22 to 27 April 1949.

  A Commonwealth-wide omnibus issue was released in 1983 to commemorate Commonwealth Day. The British set of four attempted to depict four different environments to be seen in the various Commonwealth countries. This commemoration of Commonwealth Day by such a remarkable omnibus series was never to be repeated. 

See also Blogs 2267 (2023), 2045 (2022), 1841 (2021), 1617 (2020), 1406 (2019), 1191 (2018) and 932 (2017).