2845. 🇵🇰 Pakistan Commemorates Relations With Sri Lanka.

 

New issues -

Pakistan Post -

25 December 2025 - 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka - 2 stamps. Designed by Mughiz Khan and lithographed by Pakistan Security Printing Corporation and perforated 13. Rating:- ***.

Trump trumps Maduro - is Guyana now safe?

With the increasing resistance by the people of Iran against the murderous theocracy that rules them, the news that the American president, Trump, has today launched an attack on Venezuela and kidnapped its tyrannical president, Maduro, is sending him to New York and charged him with drug offences, there is a strong suggestion that 2026 is going to be a very unstable year bringing with it dramatic international political changes which may well be reflected by the stamps that appear from various philatelic entities.

  One notable effect of Maduro’s removal from office in Venezuela is that the people of the Commonwealth republic of Guyana, the only Commonwealth country in mainland south America, will be able to sleep a little easier. In Blog 2409 (29 November 2023) I reported that Maduro was planning an impending invasion of Guyana having previously declared a large part of the Commonwealth country to be the eighth state of Venezuela - this was the oil-rich Essequibo region which had long been a bone of contention between Guyana and Venezuela. The threat of invasion came after the Venezuelan dictator had held a referendum in Venezuela to obtain the support of Venezuelan voters for the claims on Guyana territory. In the face of international pressure, Maduro backed down and the invasion never materialised but not before the Venezuelan postal service had released a miniature sheet of 4 stamps which emphasised  Venezuela’s claim to Essequibo.

It is difficult to take seriously the philatelic items released by the USA-based exploitative philatelic agents, the Intergovernmental Philatelic Corporation, but having written that, it has to be said that the products which the IGPC recently put on sale, with a stated date of issue of 12 December 2024 and the name of Guyana printed on them, take on a very real relevance to Guyana as Trump, generally loathed almost everywhere, may well have become the saviour of Guyana and hence a figure much to be loved there, by removing Maduro from power in Venezuala.

    It is interesting that many of the modern day dictators and tyrants from the different continents often fail to get themselves depicted on their national postage stamps - it’s the sort of thing you would expect them to do - but Maduro is another one of those tyrants who has failed to feature on a national stamp. It looks like he’s missed the boat now as the US Navy carries him en route to a New York prison cell to await trial for his alleged crimes.

Venezuela’s former tyrant Maduro

2409. 🇬🇾 Is Guyana About To Disappear?

 

Is Guyana about to disappear?

  A miniature sheet issued on 27 November 2023 by the postal service of Venezuela has been featured on a thread of Stampboards in the past couple of days. The item contains 4 stamps and was posted by the commentator Stewie1980 and publicises the referendum to be held in Venezuela as to whether or not Venezuela should annex the state of Essequibo which makes up about two thirds of the Commonwealth republic of Guyana, the former British Guiana, which gained independence from Britain in 1966 and is the only English-speaking country in South America.

  Essequibo is rich in minerals which is a great attraction for the pariah Venezuelan state but it is true that Venezuela has long layed claim to Essequibo although more vehemently at some times than others. The Guyana-Venezuela border was fixed by international negotiators of the British and Venezuelans as long ago as 1895 but this has not stopped the Venezuelans from claiming Essequibo intermittently. 

  Some experts feel that the Venezuelans are only days away from sending their armed forces into Guyananese Esequibo to occupy the territory and at a stroke put an end to the Guyana republic. Quite how the international community would react to a full scale occupation of Guyana by Venezuala remains to be seen. The toothless United Nations already has at least two very serious international crises to deal with - the Russian assault on Ukraine and the terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza - so it’s hard to see that anything useful would come from that quarter which would result in putting an end to a Venezuelan invasion. 

  These are dangerous times for Guyana. Not that it has not lived with the fear of Venezuelan assault since it first achieved independence. Indeed, in the past, the Guyana postal service has previously issued a number of stamps which asserted that Essequibo is an integral part of Guyana. An example of these are an issue of 1981 which was made up of Revenue stamps depicting a map of Guyana and surcharged and overprinted with the inscription “ESSEQUIBO IS OURS”.

  The next few days may be critical in deciding Guyana’s fate.

New issues.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

24 January 2024 - Chinese new year, Year of the Dragon - 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 6 stamps. This tweet mentions that this will be the penultimate issue in this long, tiresome and somewhat expensive series. Hopefully after that Guernsey Post will not introduce another 12 year cycle of stamps on this subject which has no relevance whatsoever to this small Channel island. Rating:- 0.

🇮🇳 India Post -

My Stamps, personalised stamps usually issued in sheetlets of 12 with attached labels and sold at a premium -

2023 - 75th anniversary of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute in Kochi in Kerala - 1 stamp.