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Founder effect

In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, using existing theoretical work by those such as Sewall Wright. As a result of the loss of genetic variation, the new population may be distinctively different, both genotypically and phenotypically, from the parent population from which it is derived. In extreme cases, the founder effect is thought to lead to the speciation and subsequent evolution of new species.

In the figure shown, the original population has nearly equal numbers of blue and red individuals. The three smaller founder populations show that one or the other color may predominate (founder effect), due to random sampling of the original population. A population bottleneck may also cause a founder effect, though it is not strictly a new population.

The founder effect occurs when a small group of migrants—not genetically representative of the population from which they came—establish in a new area. In addition to founder effects, the new population is often very small, so it shows increased sensitivity to genetic drift, an increase in inbreeding, and relatively low genetic variation.

Founder mutation
In genetics, a founder mutation is a mutation that appears in the DNA of one or more individuals which are founders of a distinct population. Founder mutations initiate with changes that occur in the DNA and can be passed down to other generations. Any organism—from a simple virus to something complex like a mammal—whose progeny carry its mutation has the potential to express the founder effect, for instance a goat or a human.

Founder mutations originate in long stretches of DNA on a single chromosome; indeed, the original haplotype is the whole chromosome. As the generations progress, the proportion of the haplotype that is common to all carriers of the mutation is shortened (due to genetic recombination). This shortening allows scientists to roughly estimate the age of the mutation.

General
The founder effect is a type of genetic drift, occurring when a small group in a population splinters off from the original population and forms a new one. The new colony may have less genetic variation than the original population, and through the random sampling of alleles during reproduction of subsequent generations, continue rapidly towards fixation. The homozygosity increase can be calculated as $$\Delta{f}=1/2N$$, where $$f$$ equals inbreeding coefficient and $$N$$ equals population size. This consequence of inbreeding makes the colony more vulnerable to extinction. The per generation loss of heterozygosity can be calculated as $$\Delta{h} = -1/2N$$, where $$h$$ equals heterozygosity. The population of the founders of the colony can also be calculated if the loss of heterozygosity from the bottleneck is known using the same equation.

When a newly formed colony is small, its founders can strongly affect the population's genetic makeup far into the future. In humans, who have a slow reproduction rate, the population will remain small for many generations, effectively amplifying the drift effect generation after generation until the population reaches a certain size. The post-bottleneck population growth rate can be calculated as $$N(t)={K \over 1+be^{rt}}$$, where $$t$$ equals the number of generations, $$r$$ is the growth rate, $$K$$ is the population equilibrium size, $$e$$ is the natural logarithm base, and $$b$$ is the constant $$(K-N_0)/N_0$$, where $$N_0$$ is the original size of the founding colony.

Alleles which were present but relatively rare in the original population can move to one of two extremes. The most common one is that the allele is soon lost altogether, but the other possibility is that the allele survives and within a few generations has become much more dispersed throughout the population. The new colony can experience an increase in the frequency of recessive alleles, as well, and as a result, an increased number who are homozygous for certain recessive traits. The equation to calculate reccessive allele frequencies is $$\hat{q}=\surd N_{22}/N$$ based on Hardy-Wienberg assumptions.

The variation in gene frequency between the original population and colony may also trigger the two groups to diverge significantly over the course of many generations. As the variance, or genetic distance, increases, the two separated populations may become distinctively different, both genetically and phenotypically, although not only genetic drift, but also natural selection, gene flow and mutation all contribute to this divergence. This potential for relatively rapid changes in the colony's gene frequency led most scientists to consider the founder effect (and by extension, genetic drift) a significant driving force in the evolution of new species. Sewall Wright was the first to attach this significance to random drift and small, newly isolated populations with his shifting balance theory of speciation. Following behind Wright, Ernst Mayr created many persuasive models to show that the decline in genetic variation and small population size accompanying the founder effect were critically important for new species to develop. However, much less support for this view is shown today, since the hypothesis has been tested repeatedly through experimental research, and the results have been equivocal at best. Speciation by genetic drift is a specific case of peripatric speciation which in itself occurs in rare instances. It takes place when a random change in genetic frequency of population favours the survival of a few organisms of the species with rare genes which cause reproductive mutation. These surviving organisms then breed among themselves over a long period of time to create a whole new species whose reproductive systems or behaviors are no longer compatible with the original population.

Serial founder effect
Serial founder effects have occurred when populations migrate over long distances. Such long-distance migrations typically involve relatively rapid movements followed by periods of settlement. The populations in each migration carry only a subset of the genetic diversity carried from previous migrations. As a result, genetic differentiation tends to increase with geographic distance as described by the "isolation by distance" model. The migration of humans out of Africa is characterized by serial founder effects. Africa has the highest degree of human genetic diversity of any continent, which is consistent with an African origin of modern humans.

In island ecology
Founder populations are essential to the study of island biogeography and island ecology. A natural "blank slate" is not easily found, but a classic series of studies on founder population effects was done following the catastrophic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, which erased all life on the island. Another continuing study has been following the biocolonization of Surtsey, Iceland, a new volcanic island that erupted offshore between 1963 and 1967. An earlier event, the Toba eruption in Sumatra about 73,000 years ago, covered some parts of India with 3 - 6 m of ash, and must have coated the Nicobar Islands and Andaman Islands, much nearer in the ash fallout cone, with life-smothering layers, forcing the restart of their biodiversity.

However, not all founder effect studies are initiated after a natural disaster; some scientists study the reinstatement of a species that became locally extinct or hadn't existed there before. A study has been in place since 1958 studying the wolf/moose interaction on Isle Royale in Lake Superior after those animals naturally migrated there, perhaps on winter ice. Hajji and others, and Hundertmark & Van Daele, studied the current population statuses of past founder effects in Corsican red deer and Alaskan elk, respectively. Corsican red deer are still listed as an endangered species, decades after a severe bottleneck. They inhabit the Tyrrhenian islands and surrounding mainlands currently, and before the bottleneck, but Hajji and others wanted to know how the deer originally got to the islands, and from what parent population or species they were derived. Through molecular analysis, they were able to determine a possible lineage, with red deer from the islands of Corsica and Sardinia being the most related to one another. These results are promising, as the island of Corsica was repopulated with red deer from the Sardinian island after the original Corsican red deer population became extinct, and the deer now inhabiting the island of Corsica are diverging from those inhabiting Sardinia.

Kolbe and others set up a pair of genetically sequenced and morphologically examined lizards on seven small islands to watch each new population's growth and adaptation to its new environment. Specifically, they were looking at the effects on limb length and perch width, both widely varying phenotypic ranges in the parent population. Unfortunately, immigration did occur, but the founder effect and adaptive differentiation, which could eventually lead to peripatric speciation, were statistically and biologically significant between the island populations after a few years. The authors also point out that although adaptive differentiation is significant, the differences between island populations best reflect the differences between founders and their genetic diversity that has been passed down through the generations.

Founder effects can affect complex traits, such as song diversity. In the Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis), the percentage of unique songs within a repertoire and within‐song complexity were significantly lower in birds from founder populations.

It was found by Tarr et al. (1998) that the loss of heterozygosity of the Laysan finch (Telespiza cantans) after founding events on small islands in the Pacific Ocean closely matched theoretical calculations upon examination of microsatellite loci.

Among human populations
Genetic studies of founder effect have concentrated on discovering ancestral and novel genetic diseases caused by founder effect and, to a lesser degree, on ancestry-related founder effects on populations, races, and ancient migrations, as well other aspects. The founder population could be the common ancestry of race or ethnicity or the forced localizations caused by artificial countries inside the larger group of ancestry, hence causing an original founder effect. Race and specific founder effect mutation diseases are found in all races or ethnicities, and country-specific mutation diseases are caused by increasing homozygosity (the existence of same gene on both chromosomes pairs, hence a recessive disease may increase in just few generations). The genetic abnormality will increase incrementally with the decrease of number of isolated populations making tribe-specific diseases (such as Ashkenazis, Amish, and Bedouins) and novel genetic defects. In recessive diseases, founder populations where underlying levels of genome-wide homozygosity are high due to shared common ancestry, but also for consanguineous populations that will have large genome-wide homozygous regions due to inbreeding. Having a catalog of disease-associated variation in these populations enables rapid, early, and accurate diagnoses that may improve patient outcomes due to informed clinical management and early interventions. Enclosed communities such as Amish communities, Ashkenazi communities, and relatively isolated islands allow scientists to better understand and further discover the mutated genes that cause these rare diseases and allow them to also discover protective genes as well.

Due to various migrations throughout human history, founder effects are somewhat common among humans in different times and places. The French Canadians of Quebec are a classical example of founder population. Over 150 years of French colonization, between 1608 and 1760, an estimated 8,500 pioneers married and left at least one descendant on the territory. Following the takeover of the colony by the British crown in 1760, immigration from France effectively stopped, but descendants of French settlers continued to grow in number mainly due to their high fertility rate. Intermarriage occurred mostly with the deported Acadians and migrants coming from the British Isles. Since the 20th century, immigration in Quebec and mixing of French Canadians involve people from all over the world. While the French Canadians of Quebec today may be partly of other ancestries, the genetic contribution of the original French founders is predominant, explaining about 90% of regional gene pools, while Acadian (descended from other French settlers in eastern Canada) admixtures contributing 4% British and 2% Native American and other groups contributing less.

In humans, founder effects can arise from cultural isolation, and inevitably, endogamy. For example, the Amish populations in the United States exhibit founder effects because they have grown from a very few founders, have not recruited newcomers, and tend to marry within the community. Though still rare, phenomena such as polydactyly (extra fingers and toes, a symptom of a condition such as Weyers acrodental dysostosis or Ellis–Van Creveld syndrome ) are more common in Amish communities than in the American population at large. Maple syrup urine disease affects about one out of 180,000 infants in the general population. Due in part to the founder effect, however, the disease has a much higher prevalence in children of Amish, Mennonite, and Jewish descent. Similarly, a high frequency of fumarase deficiency exists among the 10,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a community which practices both endogamy and polygyny, where an estimated 75-80% of the community are blood relatives of just two men—founders John Y. Barlow and Joseph Smith Jessop. In South Asia, castes like the Gujjars, the Baniyas and the Pattapu Kapu have estimated founder effects about 10 times as strong as those of Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.

In Africa, many members of the Vadoma tribe inherit ectrodactyly, giving them the nickname of the “two-toed tribe”.

The island of Pingelap also suffered a population bottleneck in 1775 following a typhoon that had reduced the population to only 20 people. As a result, complete achromatopsia has a current rate of occurrence of roughly 10%, with an additional 30% being carriers of this recessive condition.

Around 1814, a small group of British colonists founded a settlement on Tristan da Cunha, a group of small islands in the Atlantic Ocean, midway between Africa and South America. One of the early colonists apparently carried a rare, recessive allele for retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive form of blindness that afflicts homozygous individuals. As late as 1961, the majority of the genes in the gene pool on Tristan were still derived from 15 original ancestors; as a consequence of the inbreeding, of 232 people tested in 1961, four were suffering from retinitis pigmentosa. This represents a prevalence of 1 in 58, compared with a worldwide prevalence of around 1 in 4,000.

The abnormally high rate of twin births in Cândido Godói could be explained by the founder effect.

On 31 August 2023, researchers reported, based on genetic studies, that a human ancestor population bottleneck (from a possible 100,000 to 1000 individuals) occurred "around 930,000 and 813,000 years ago ... lasted for about 117,000 years and brought human ancestors close to extinction."

title: Founder effect


text:
Georgi Parvanov

Georgi Sedefchov Parvanov (Георги Седефчов Първанов, ) (born 28 June 1957) is a Bulgarian historian and politician who was President of Bulgaria from 2002 to 2012. He was elected after defeating incumbent Petar Stoyanov in the second round of the November 2001 presidential election. He took office on 22 January 2002. He was reelected in a landslide victory in 2006, becoming the first Bulgarian president to serve two terms. Parvanov supported Bulgaria's entry into NATO and the European Union.

According to Bulgarian law, a Bulgarian president is not allowed to be a member of a political party, thus Parvanov left the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) after his election in 2001. Although he identified as a socialist, Parvanov often called himself a 'social president'.

After completing his second term as president, Parvanov returned to the Socialist Party, prompting a dispute over the party leadership. In January 2014 Parvanov restarted his Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) project, announcing he would be fielding his own candidates for the 2014 European parliamentary elections. On 15 January 2017, he stepped down as party leader and was replaced by Konstantin Prodanov.

Early years
Georgi Parvanov was born in Sirishtnik, Pernik Province on 28 June 1957 and he grew up in nearby Kosacha. In 1975 Parvanov graduated from secondary school in Pernik and in 1981 finished his undergraduate education at Sofia University, gaining a major in history, specializing in the history of the Bulgarian Communist Party. In 1988 Parvanov defended his doctoral thesis in history, which is titled "Dimitar Blagoev and the Bulgarian national question 1879-1917".

Professional career
Parvanov joined the Institute for History of the Bulgarian Communist Party as a researcher in 1981. His main interest was the Bulgarian national issue and the early history of social democracy in Bulgaria. In 1989 he was promoted to a senior research associate.

In May 2001 he became a member of the Internet Society of Bulgaria.

Early political career
In 1981 Parvanov joined the Bulgarian Communist Party. In April 1990 the party was transformed into the Bulgarian Socialist Party. In 1989 Parvanov formed the nationalist organization "Nationwide Committee for the Defense of National Interests" (Bulgarian: Общонароден комитет за защита на националните интереси). In 1994 he became Deputy Chairman of the BSP national Council. It was also in that year that he was elected to the National Assembly; he was reelected in 1997 and 2001. Parvanov was chairman of the Parliamentary Group for Friendship with Greece and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Radio and Television from 1994 to 1997.

Leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party
Because of a severe financial crisis, the Prime Minister and leader of the BSP, Zhan Videnov, resigned in December 1996. Georgi Parvanov was elected as his successor that month. However, after large protests against the socialist government in January 1997, Parvanov and Nikolay Dobrev (the nominated Prime Minister) returned the mandate to form a government. In the early parliamentary elections that ensued, the Socialist Party went into opposition, swept away by the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS).

In 2000 Parvanov was reelected as Chairman of the National Council of the BSP. He has been credited with altering the geopolitical orientation of the party, paving the way for Bulgaria's joining of NATO in 2004.

Parvanov led his party to its worst electoral performance in 2001. Both the BSP and the SDS suffered greatly from the rise of the newly founded National Movement for Simeon II.

2001 presidential election
In the first round of the 2001 presidential election, Parvanov won 36.4% of the votes, finishing ahead of the incumbent SDS candidate, Petar Stoyanov, who polled 34.9% of the votes. The voter turnout was the lowest to date: only 41.8%. Parvanov emerged victorious in the runoff, winning 54.1% of the votes. Voter turnout was significantly higher in the second round: 55.1%. Following his victory, Sergei Stanishev took over the party leadership. Parvanov took office on 22 January 2002, becoming the first ex-Communist to win the presidency since 1990.

2006 presidential election
In 2006 he ran for re-election. He was backed by the ruling triple coalition, who won 70% of the seats in parliament the year before. He won first round on 22 October with 64 per cent of the vote. Because the turnout was less than 50%, he faced the nationalist Volen Siderov at the runoff on 29 October. Parvanov won with 76 per cent of the vote. This made Parvanov the first President to be reelected in Bulgaria.

Second mandate
In the second mandate of Georgi Parvanov as a President of Bulgaria, two governments changed: that of Sergei Stanishev and the current one of Boiko Borisov. As for the government of Stanishev Parvanov is often accused of not taking position about important matters, the critics even made Parvanov admit he actually proposed resignation of Stanishev as a PM before the end of Stanishev government's mandate in order that the Socialist Party has more chances in the following parliamentary elections. At the beginning of the First Borisov Government, Parvanov faced regular argues with Finance Minister Simeon Djankov and later with Minister of Defence Aniu Anev, and indirectly with Minister of Education Sergei Ignatov. Arguments and tapes send to media reached such point that a proposal for impeachment reached in Bulgarian Parliament which had enough signed representers but in the last moment was not voted by the RZS party and thus failed parliamentary approval. Following the attempt for impeachment Parvanov quickly gained back his personal authority.

ABV (АБВ)
In summer 2010, Parvanov reached his platform ABV (Bulgarian: АБВ), the name constructed by the first three letters in Bulgarian alphabet, which he claimed was neither a political party nor a preparation for registering such. However, he visited many cities and had meetings with mayors which was a sign that some interpreted as a preparation for regional and further parliamentary elections. With the coming-out of the first sociological researches, it became clear ABV would not reach enough votes in the next elections and Parvanov moved his sight back to his party BSP. It was also suggested that ABV will move as a part of BSP at some point. While in 2013 virtually no media mentioned ABV in any context, in January 2014 Parvanov made what some media called "a disappointing attempt to restart the project", and others referred to ABV as an "officially frozen project".

Political stances
Although the office of the Bulgarian President is largely representative and executive power lies within the government, Georgi Parvanov has played an active political role. His political views, for example in the context of the Kosovo War, have been described as pro-Russian.

Collaboration with Committee for State Security
In 2006 Parvanov admitted that before 1989 there was a file on him at the Communist Security Service (Darzhavna Sigurnost, or DS) under the nickname "Gotse" (for the revolutionary Gotse Delchev) for his scientific assistance on Macedonian topics. The file like most other files of the Security Service hasn't been released to the public for a while (it is now available online). According to Parvanov's own statement, the file only shows that he had been consulted as a historian in conjunction with the writing of a memoir book about events related to the Macedonian Question in the 19th century. That was confirmed by two members of parliamentary commissions that had examined the files of the Security Service earlier — Bogomil Bonev and Veselin Angelov. Two other members, Metodi Andreev and Evgeni Dimitrov, accused the former of lying and asserted that the historical research had only been a prelude, followed by Parvanov's consent to work as an agent and write a report about his institute.

Iraq Oil for Food program (1998)
The report of the Special Commission of the United Nations into the misconduct of the Iraqi "Oil for food" suggests that in 1998 Saddam Hussein took bribes from the Bulgarian Socialist Party, then led by Parvanov and companies close to the party. Parvanov denied these allegations explaining that the party's financing was transparent and legitimate. No further evidence to support these claims was found.

Bulgarian Christmas Charity Campaign (2003-present)
Georgi Parvanov initiated the "Bulgarian Christmas" campaign, a funds raised for the treatment of children and renovation of hospitals and health institutions. Bulgarian Christmas is a musical event each year at the time of Christmas in which Bulgarian performers sing their most popular songs in the audience of the President and his wife, and other VIP guests. The event is TV-broadcast on the national channel BNT and funds are being raised by donations through SMS and bank transfers.

Over the years, millions of euro have been donated by private individuals such as Igor Parvanov and foreign companies, and Parvanov as closely related to the campaign warrants that the money be spent as prescribed.

Family
Parvanov has two children with his wife, Zorka Parvanova: Vladimir and Ivaylo. Parvanov has two grandchildren from his son Vladimir: Georgi (born 2011) and Victoria (born 2015).

Foreign honours

 * 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan : Heydar Aliyev Order
 * 🇧🇪 Belgium : Grand Cordon of the Leopold
 * 🇧🇷 Brazil : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross
 * 🇩🇰 Denmark : Knight of the Order of the Elephant (29 March 2006)
 * 🇪🇪 Estonia : Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (30 May 2003)
 * 🇱🇻 Latvia : 1st Class with Chain of the Order of the Three Stars
 * 🇱🇹 Lithuania : Knight Grand Cross with Golden Chain of the Order of Vytautas the Great (13 March 2009)
 * 🇲🇹 Malta : Companion of Honour with Collar of the National Order of Merit (20 October 2009)
 * 🇲🇨 Monaco : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles (26 November 2004)
 * 🇳🇴 Norway : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (29 August 2006)
 * 🇪🇸 Spain : Collar of the Order of Civil Merit (7 June 2003)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal: Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (7 October 2002)

Publications
Parvanov is an author of dozens of scientific articles. His monographs and books:
 * Dimitar Blagoev and the Bulgarian National Problem 1879–1917, 1988
 * From Bouzloudja to the Corona Theatre. An Attempt at a New Reading of Pages from the BSP's Social Democratic Period, 1995
 * The Bulgarian Social Democracy and the Macedonian Issue at the End of the 19th century up to 1918, 1997
 * Before and after the 10th, 2001

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Georgi Parvanov


text:
Domitien Ndayizeye

Domitien Ndayizeye (born 2 May 1953) is a Burundian politician who was President of Burundi from 2003 to 2005. He succeeded Pierre Buyoya, as president on 30 April 2003, after serving as Buyoya's vice president for 18 months. Ndayizeye remained in office until succeeded by Pierre Nkurunziza on 26 August 2005.

Ndayizeye currently serves as head of the National Gathering for Change (RANAC).

In 1994 he was appointed director of the National Intelligence Service by President Cyprien Ntaryamira.

In 2004, Ndayizeye proposed a draft constitution to the parliament prior to it being put to the electorate in referendum later in the year. Relations with the Tutsi group were strained, reflected in their boycotting of the legislative session due to consider the proposal. Due to a lack of preparation, the ballot was postponed to late November 2004.

Burundi is still trying to emerge from a civil war that began in 1993 when several groups drawn from the large Hutu majority took up arms against a government and army then dominated by a Tutsi elite.

The interim government pledged to more equitably share power between the two main ethnic groups.

On 21 August 2006, Ndayizeye was arrested in Bujumbura in relation to his alleged role in a coup plot earlier in the year. The Senate lifted his immunity as Senator prior to his arrest. He denied the charges against him in court on December 19 and said that he had "never dreamed of organising a coup, in fact I had given up politics to do business and be with my family". On January 15, 2007, he was acquitted along with former vice president Alphonse-Marie Kadege and three other defendants; two others were sentenced to long prison terms.

During 2010 general elections, as his party representative, he ran for the presidential seat but decided to withdraw from the race together with all opposition parties, after they accused the ruling party of rigging previous councilors' elections.

After opposition politician Zedi Feruzi was killed during the 2015 Burundian unrest Ndayizeye and other opposition parties broke off talks with the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza.

title: Domitien Ndayizeye


text:
Order No. 227

Order No. 227 (Приказ № 227) was an order issued on 28 July 1942 by Joseph Stalin, who was acting as the People's Commissar of Defence. It is known for its line "Not a step back!" (Ни шагу назад!, Ni shagu nazad!), which became the primary slogan of the Soviet press in summer 1942.

Order No. 227 established that each front must create one to three penal battalions (штрафной батальон, commonly known as штрафбат) of up to 800 middle-ranking commanders and high-ranking commanders accused of disciplinary problems, which were sent to the most dangerous sections of the front lines. From 1942 to 1945, a total of 422,700 Red Army personnel were sentenced to penal battalions as a result of courts-martial. The order also directed that each army must create "blocking detachments" at the rear that would shoot "panic-mongers and cowards". In the first three months, blocking detachments shot 1,000 penal troops and sent 24,000 to penal battalions. By October 1942, the idea of regular blocking detachments was unofficially dropped.

Intended to galvanise the morale of the hard-pressed Red Army and emphasize patriotism, it had a generally detrimental effect and was not consistently implemented by commanders who viewed diverting troops to create blocking detachments as a waste of manpower. On 29 October 1944, blocking detachments were officially disbanded by Stalin's order No. 349 citing the changed situation at the front.

History
During the first part of the war on the Eastern Front, the Soviets suffered heavy losses along with mass retreat and desertion. Stalin released order No. 227 intending to re-establish discipline in the Red Army in the battle against the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS: "Moscow, Nr. 227, July 28, 1942 The enemy throws new forces to the front without regard to heavy losses and penetrates deep into the Soviet Union, seizing new regions, destroying our cities and villages, and violating, plundering and killing the Soviet population. Combat goes on in region Voronezh, near Don, in the south, and at the gates of the Northern Caucasus. The German invaders penetrate toward Stalingrad, to Volga and want at any cost to trap Kuban and the Northern Caucasus, with their oil and grain. The enemy already has captured Voroshilovgrad, Starobelsk, Rossosh, Kupyansk, Valuyki, Novocherkassk, Rostov on Don, half Voronezh. Part of the troops of the Southern front, following the panic-mongers, have left Rostov and Novocherkassk without severe resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.

The population of our country, who love and respect the Red Army, start to be discouraged in her and lose faith in the Red Army, and many curse the Red Army for leaving our people under the yoke of the German oppressors, and itself running east.

Some stupid people at the front calm themselves with talk that we can retreat further to the east, as we have a lot of territory, a lot of ground, a lot of population and that there will always be much bread for us. They want to justify the infamous behaviour at the front. But such talk is a falsehood, helpful only to our enemies.

Each commander, Red Army soldier and political commissar should understand that our means are not limitless. The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people – workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR which the enemy has captured and aims to capture is bread and other products for the army, metal and fuel for industry, factories, plants supplying the army with arms and ammunition, railways. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic republics, Donetzk, and other areas we have much less territory, much fewer people, bread, metal, plants and factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 800 million pounds of bread annually and more than 10 million tons of metal annually. Now we do not have predominance over the Germans in human reserves, in reserves of bread. To retreat further – means to waste ourselves and to waste at the same time our Motherland.

Therefore it is necessary to eliminate talk that we have the capability endlessly to retreat, that we have a lot of territory, that our country is great and rich, that there is a large population, and that bread always will be abundant. Such talk is false and parasitic, it weakens us and benefits the enemy, if we do not stop retreating we will be without bread, without fuel, without metal, without raw material, without factories and plants, without railways.

This leads to the conclusion, it is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan."

It goes on to state that The Supreme General Headquarters of the Red Army commands:

"1. Military councils of the fronts and first of all front commanders should:

 * a) Unconditionally eliminate retreat moods in the troops and with a firm hand bar propaganda that we can and should retreat further east, and that such retreat will cause no harm;
 * b) Unconditionally remove from their posts and send to the High Command for court-martial those army commanders who have allowed unauthorized troop withdrawals from occupied positions, without the order of the Front command.
 * c) Form within each Front from one up to three (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 persons) where commanders and high commanders and appropriate commissars of all service arms who have been guilty of a breach of discipline due to cowardice or bewilderment will be sent, and put them on more difficult sectors of the front to give them an opportunity to redeem by blood their crimes against the Motherland.

2. Military councils of armies and first of all army commanders should;

 * a) Unconditionally remove from their offices, corps and army commanders and commissars who have accepted troop withdrawals from occupied positions without the order of the army command, and route them to the military councils of the fronts for court-martial;
 * b) Form within the limits of each army 3 to 5 well-armed defensive squads (up to 200 persons in each), and put them directly behind unstable divisions and require them in case of panic and scattered withdrawals of elements of the divisions to shoot in place panic-mongers and cowards and thus help the honest soldiers of the division execute their duty to the Motherland;
 * c) Form within the limits of each army up to ten (depending on the situation) penal companies (from 150 to 200 persons in each) where ordinary soldiers and low ranking commanders who have been guilty of a breach of discipline due to cowardice or bewilderment will be routed, and put them at difficult sectors of the army to give them an opportunity to redeem by blood their crimes against the Motherland.

3. Commanders and commissars of corps and divisions should;

 * a) Unconditionally remove from their posts commanders and commissars of regiments and battalions who have accepted unwarranted withdrawal of their troops without the order of the corps or division commander, take from them their orders and medals and route them to military councils of fronts for court martial;
 * b) Render all help and support to the defensive squads of the army in their business of strengthening order and discipline in the units.

This order is to be read in all companies, cavalry squadrons, batteries, squadrons, commands and headquarters.

The People’s commissioner of Defense I. Stalin"

Effect
Marshal of the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, wrote: "...Order N 227 is one of the most powerful documents of the war years due to its patriotic and emotional content... the document was motivated by rough and dark times... while reading it we were thinking to ourselves if we were doing everything it takes to win the battle."

Each front had to create penal companies for privates and NCOs. By the end of 1942, there were 24,993 troops serving in penal battalions, which increased to 177,694 in 1943. The number decreased over the next two years to 143,457 and 81,766 soldiers in 1944 and 1945, respectively. The total of Red Army personnel sentenced by courts-martial was 994,300, with 422,700 assigned to penal battalions and 436,600 imprisoned after sentencing. Not included are 212,400 deserters, who were not found and escaped the custody of the military districts.

In the first three months, blocking detachments shot 1,000 penal troops and sent 24,000 to penal battalions. According to an internal list of the NKVD from October 1942, 15,649 soldiers were picked up by the restricted forces who fled the front line on the Stalingrad Front from August 1, 1942, to October 15, 1942. Of these, 244 soldiers were imprisoned, 278 were shot, 218 were sent to penal companies, 42 to penal battalions and 14,833 to return to their units. By October 1942, the idea of regular blocking detachments was unofficially dropped.

title: Order No. 227


text:
Paul Biya

Paul Biya (born Paul Barthélemy Biya'a bi Mvondo; 13 February 1933) is a Cameroonian politician who is the second president of Cameroon since 6 November 1982, having previously been the prime minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982. He is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa, the longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world and the oldest head of state in the world. He is regarded as an authoritarian leader and a dictator.

A native of Cameroon's south, Biya rose rapidly as a bureaucrat under President Ahmadou Ahidjo in the 1960s, as Secretary-General of the Presidency from 1968 to 1975 and then as Prime Minister. He succeeded Ahidjo as President upon the latter's surprise resignation in 1982 and consolidated power in a 1983–1984 staged attempted coup in which he eliminated all of his major rivals.

Biya introduced political reforms within the context of a one-party system in the 1980s, later accepting the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s under serious pressure. He won the contentious 1992 presidential election with 40% of the plural, single-ballot vote and was re-elected by large margins in 1997, 2004, 2011, and 2018. Opposition politicians and Western governments have alleged voting irregularities and fraud on each of these occasions. Multiple sources have provided evidence that he did not win the elections in 1992  and the political opposition along with others have alleged subsequent elections suffered from rampant fraud.

Early life and education
Paul Biya was born in the village of Mvomeka'a in what is now the South Region of Cameroon. He studied at the Lycée General Leclerc, Yaoundé, and in France at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris, going on to the Institut des hautes études d'Outre-Mer, where he graduated in 1961 with a higher education diploma in public law.

Rise to prominence and forward
As a Chargé de Mission in post-independence 1960s Cameroon, Biya rose to prominence under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. After becoming director of the Cabinet of the minister of national education in January 1964 and secretary-general of the ministry of national education in July 1965, he was named director of the civil cabinet of the president in December 1967 and secretary-general of the presidency (while remaining director of the civil cabinet) in January 1968. He gained the rank of minister in August 1968 and the rank of minister of state in June 1970, while remaining secretary-general of the presidency. Following the creation of a unitary state in 1972, he became Prime Minister of Cameroon on 30 June 1975. In June 1979, a new law designated the prime minister as the president's constitutional successor. Ahidjo unexpectedly announced his resignation on 4 November 1982, and Biya accordingly succeeded him as president of Cameroon on 6 November.

Because Biya is a Christian from the southern region of Cameroon, it was considered surprising that he was chosen by Ahidjo, a Muslim from the north, as his successor. Biya's father, who was a catechist, wanted him to join the clergy, but at the age of 16 while in Catholic school, he was expelled. After Biya became President, Ahidjo initially remained head of the ruling Cameroon National Union (CNU/ UNC). Biya was brought into the CNU Central Committee and Political Bureau and was elected as the Vice-President of the CNU. On 11 December 1982, he was placed in charge of managing party affairs in Ahidjo's absence. During the first months after Biya's succession, he continued to show loyalty to Ahidjo, and Ahidjo continued to show support for Biya, but in 1983 a deep rift developed between the two. Ahidjo went into exile in France, and from there he publicly accused Biya of abuse of power and paranoia about plots against him. After Ahidjo resigned as CNU leader, Biya took the helm of the party at an "extraordinary session" of the CNU party held on 14 September 1983.

In November 1983, Biya announced that the next presidential election would be held on 14 January 1984; it had been previously scheduled for 1985. He was the sole candidate in this election and won 99.98% of the vote. In February 1984, Ahidjo was put on trial in absentia for alleged involvement in a 1983 coup plot, along with two others; they were sentenced to death, although Biya commuted their sentences to life in prison. Biya survived a military coup attempt on 6 April 1984, following his decision on the previous day to disband the Republican Guard and disperse its members across the military. Estimates of the death toll ranged from 71 (according to the government) to about 1,000. Northern Muslims were the primary participants in this coup attempt, which was seen by many as an attempt to restore that group's supremacy; Biya, however, chose to emphasize national unity and did not focus blame on northern Muslims. Ahidjo was widely believed to have orchestrated the coup attempt, and Biya is thought to have learned of the plot in advance and to have disbanded the Republican Guard in response, forcing the coup plotters to act earlier than they had planned, which may have been a crucial factor in the coup's failure. Under his rule, the country adopted a structural adjustment plan submitted to it by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which involved privatization, opening up to competition, and reducing social spending. Civil servants' salaries were reduced by 60%, and the informal sector increased very significantly.

In 1985, the CNU was transformed into the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, in Bamenda and Biya was unlawfully elected as its president. He was also re-elected as President of Cameroon on 24 April 1988. Biya initially took some steps to open up the regime, culminating in the decision to legalize opposition parties in 1990. According to official results, Biya won the first multiparty presidential election, held on 11 October 1992, with about 40% of the vote. There was no provision for a runoff; the opposition was unable to unite around a single candidate. The second placed candidate, John Fru Ndi of the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), officially received about 36%. The results were strongly disputed by the opposition, which alleged fraud.

In the October 1997 presidential election, which was boycotted by the main opposition parties, Biya was re-elected with 92.6 percent of the vote; he was sworn in on 3 November.

He has been consistently re-elected as the National President of the RDPC; he was re-elected at the party's second extraordinary congress on 7 July 2001 and its third extraordinary congress on 21 July 2006.

Biya won another seven-year term in the 11 October 2004 presidential election, officially taking 70.92 percent of the vote, although the opposition again alleged widespread fraud. Biya was sworn in on 3 November.

After being re-elected in 2004, Biya was barred by a two-term limit in the 1996 Constitution from running for President again in 2011, but he sought to revise this, to allow him to run again. In his 2008 New Year's message, Biya expressed support for revising the Constitution, saying that it was undemocratic to limit the people's choice. The proposed removal of term limits was among the grievances expressed during violent protests in late February 2008. Nevertheless, on 10 April 2008, the National Assembly voted to change the Constitution to remove term limits. Given the RDPC's control of the National Assembly, the change was overwhelmingly approved, with 157 votes in favor and five opposed; the 15 deputies of the SDF chose to boycott the vote in protest. The change also provided for the President to enjoy immunity from prosecution for his actions as President after leaving office. On 12 June 2006, he signed the Greentree Agreement with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo which formally put an end to the Bakassi peninsula border dispute.

In February 2008, riots broke out, calling for lower prices and the departure of Paul Biya as president. The demonstrators were severely repressed with reports of a hundred dead and thousands of arrests.

In the October 2011 presidential election, Biya secured a sixth term in office, polling 77.9% of votes cast. John Fru Ndi was his nearest rival, polling 10%. Biya's opponents alleged wide-scale fraud in the election and procedural irregularities were noted by the French and US governments. In his victory speech, Biya promised to stimulate growth and create jobs with a programme of public works which would "transform our country into a vast construction site". On 3 November 2011, he was sworn in for another term as President.

Biya won the 2018 presidential election with 71.3% of the vote. The election was marred by violence and low voter turnout. As of 2022, he is the longest serving non-royal head of state, having been in power since 30 June 1975.

Foreign relations
France

His regime is supported by France, one of the former colonial powers in Cameroon, which supplies it with weapons and trains its military forces. France is also the leading foreign investor in Cameroon.

China

The People's Republic established relations with Cameroon on 26 March 1971. In the 2000s, leading politicians paid state visits to and from each country; these included President Biya's visit for a conference in 2006 and Hu Jintao's visit to Cameroon in 2007.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Cameroon on 12 January 2014.

Cameroon was one of 53 countries that, in June 2020, backed the Hong Kong national security law at the United Nations.

Israel

Cameroon voted against several anti-Israel UN resolutions, and was the only nation to join Israel in voting against the UN resolution "Assistance to Palestine Refugees".

Cameroon cut ties with Israel from 1973 to 1986 and was one of the first states to restore relations. The government of Cameroon uses Israeli armored vehicles, and Cameroon's Rapid Reaction Force, often shortened (by its French name) to BIR, is equipped and trained by Israel.

Students in Cameroon were granted 11 month visas to travel to Israel and learn about agriculture, while poultry farmers underwent training for poultry production in Israel.

Israelis also trained personnel at six hospitals in Cameroon on how to combat the Ebola virus.

Nigeria

Biya, Abidjo's successor as president, filed suit at the International Court of Justice on 29 March 1994. Cameroon's claim to Bakassi was largely based on the Anglo-German agreement of 1913 and the 1975 Maroua Declaration. Nigeria, on the other hand, argued that the peninsula had been the territory of the chiefs of Old Calabar, who had transferred their title to Nigeria upon its independence. As support for this argument it pointed to the Nigerian collection of taxes in the region, the widespread use of Nigerian passports by its residents, and other signs that the Nigerian state had been intimately involved in the governance of the peninsula. On 10 October 2002, after more than eight years of hearings and deliberations, the court ruled in favour of Cameroon, instructing Nigeria to withdraw immediately from the region.

Although Nigeria initially protested the decision, and although it caused significant unrest in Bakassi, Olusegun Obasanjo's regime largely cooperated with the ruling. In June 2006, at the Greentree estate in Long Island, New York, the countries signed the Greentree Agreement, which required Nigeria to withdraw its troops from Bakassi by 4 August 2008, and also required Cameroon to protect the rights of the Nigerian citizens who lived in Bakassi. The transfer of the territory to Cameroon proceeded peacefully under the agreement. The Cameroonian government now presents the dispute as a "misunderstanding", and its resolution as "a model of peaceful conflict resolution in Africa."

At the request of Biya and Obasanjo, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan established the Cameroon–Nigeria Mixed Commission to negotiate a smooth implementation of the International Court of Justice's 2002 ruling. The commission's responsibilities included demarcating the entirety of the Cameroon–Nigeria border, facilitating cross-border cooperation and troop withdrawals from Bakassi, and protecting the rights of locals. The commission was chaired by Mohamed Ibn Chambas and had met 38 times by 2015. As of July 2019, 2,001 kilometres of boundary (out of an estimated 2,100 kilometres) had been surveyed and agreed to by both countries, including the border at Bakassi. In May 2007 in Abuja, the commission finalised the maritime boundary, but in 2015, the Cameroonian government reported that "a few tens of kilometres remain[ed] a stumbling block" in finalising the land boundary.

United States

However, Cameroon–U.S. economic relations were at their highest ever level in 1982, when Ahidjo was replaced by his prime minister, Biya. Between 1982 and 1984, the U.S. overtook France as Cameroon's foremost export market, primarily due to its consumption of Cameroonian oil. Biya pursued a diversification of Cameroonian foreign relations still more vigorously than Ahidjo had, describing his foreign policy in such terms as "diplomacy of development", "co-operation without frontiers", and "open door" diplomacy.

From around 2013, bilateral relations increasingly emphasised joint counterterrorism actions against Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa, alongside other regional security initiatives, especially in the Gulf of Guinea. Between 2015 and 2020, about 300 U.S. military personnel were deployed in northern Cameroon to conduct regional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Opposition and criticism
Biya makes relatively few public appearances, and is sometimes characterized as aloof. Since the early 1990s, he has faced his strongest opposition from the Anglophone population of the former Southern Cameroons in the western part of the country. Although Biya made some efforts to open up the political environment, his regime still retains clear authoritarian characteristics and has largely bucked the trend toward democracy in Africa since the 1990s. Under the constitution, Biya has sweeping executive and legislative powers. He even has considerable authority over the judiciary; the courts can only review a law's constitutionality at his request. The RDPC continues to dominate the National Assembly, which does little more than approve his policies.

"Tyrants, the World's 20 Worst Living Dictators", by David Wallechinsky, ranked Biya together with three other leaders in sub-Saharan Africa: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, and King Mswati of Swaziland (now Eswatini). He describes Cameroon's electoral process in these terms: "Every few years, Biya stages an election to justify his continuing reign, but these elections have no credibility. In fact, Biya is credited with a creative innovation in the world of phony elections. In 2004, annoyed by the criticisms of international vote-monitoring groups, he paid for his own set of international observers, six ex-U.S. congressmen, who certified his election as free and fair." In a 2005 interview William Quantrill, a retired member of the British Diplomatic Service, argued that the reluctance of Biya to delegate responsibility seriously hampered the quality of governance, with trivial decisions often delayed until he got round to delivering them, and that there was too much government interference in the economy in general.

Biya regularly spends extended periods of time in Switzerland at the Hotel InterContinental Geneva where the former director Herbert Schott reportedly said he comes to work without being disturbed. These extended stays away from Cameroon – while sometimes as short as two weeks and sometimes as long as three months – are almost always referred to as "short stays" in the state-owned press and other media. In February 2008, he passed a bill that allows for having an additional term in office as president which was followed by civil unrests throughout the country. The main violent riots took place in the Western, English-speaking part of the country starting with a "strike" initiated by taxi drivers in Douala, allegedly causing more than 200 casualties in the end. In 2009, his holiday in France allegedly cost $40,000 a day spent on 43 hotel rooms. In 2009, Biya was ranked 19th in Parade Magazine's Top 20 list of "The World's Worst Dictators".

In November 2010, Bertrand Teyou published a book titled La belle de la république bananière: Chantal Biya, de la rue au palais (English: "The beauty of the banana republic: Chantal Biya, from the streets to the palace"), tracing Chantal Biya's rise from humble origins to become Paul Biya's First Lady. He was subsequently given a two-year prison term on charges of "insult to character" and organizing an "illegal demonstration" for attempting to hold a public reading. Amnesty International and International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee both protested his arrest and issued appeals on his behalf; Amnesty International also named him a prisoner of conscience. He was freed on 2 May 2011 when the London chapter of International PEN agreed to pay his fine in order that he might seek treatment for his worsening health condition.

In February 2014, French citizen Michel Thierry Atangana was released from a makeshift Yaoundé prison where, under Biya's orders, he had been arbitrarily detained for 17 years under false claims of embezzlement because of supposed closeness to presidential candidate Titus Edzoa. Considered a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience by the United States Department of State, Amnesty International, Freedom House, and the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention since 2005, Michel was released under Biya's personal decree but the Working Group's tripartite demands remain unfulfilled. In 2016, Cameroonians in the nation's capital city of Yaoundé criticized Biya's reaction to the country's worst train crash in which 79 people died. Critics included government officials who remained anonymous, fearing a backlash. The Anglophone protests in late 2016 were led by English-speaking lawyers in protest against the use of French in Cameroonian courts, which led to violent clashes with police. Opposition party leader Edna Njilin of the Cameroon People's Party spoke out against the enforced use of French in the classroom. In January 2017, the government ordered a suspension of Internet services in the Northwest and Southwest provinces. Criticism of the suspension and increased opposition led to resumption of services in late April.

By June 2017, protests in Cameroon's English-speaking provinces and cities led to police responding with force, with four protesters killed and more than 100 arrested. International criticism has been levied at the United States for their lack of response to the growing Cameroonian crisis.

In April 2017, a Cameroonian journalist working for Radio France Internationale, Ahmed Abba, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by a military tribunal for failing to report acts of terrorism. The judgement was severely criticized by human rights groups including Amnesty International.

On 7 November 2018, another Cameroonian journalist, Mimi Mefo, was arrested after reporting on social media that the Cameroonian military was behind the murder of an American missionary in the country, Charles Trumann, in October of that year. Mefo was charged with "publishing and propagating information that infringes on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Cameroon," but was released and charges were dropped on 12 November after her arrest was condemned by both local and international media groups.

In March 2024, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced “intense repression” by the Cameroonian government against the opposition, after the government of Paul Biya declared the grouping of its main parties in two platforms “illegal”.

Anglophone Cameroon
During 2016 and 2017, under Paul Biya's reign, large scale protests broke out among Anglophone Cameroonians in the area of the formerly British Southern Cameroons. Protestors complained that Anglophone regions in Cameroon (the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region) were neglected by Biya's government, and excluded from power. During this time, Anglophone separatists claim that government forces murdered protestors en masse, and committed crimes against humanity, including genocide. Certain protestors had called upon Biya and the Cameroonian government to grant them independence.

Eventually, separatists declared independence in October 2017 under the name Ambazonia. Numerous civilians and activists have accused Biya's government forces of burning villages, raping women, extrajudicial killings of civilians, and acts of genocide. A petition to the United Nations gave details of police raping students at a university. The National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms embarked on a fact-finding mission in Buea to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in the region.

A June 2018 report by the BBC News found a widespread pattern of villages throughout the Southwest Region being burnt, including one video of men wearing government-issued BIR (Bataillon d'Intervention Rapide) equipment. The BIR is a special force body that reports directly to President Biya. The report also included a video of a man being tortured by men appearing to be Cameroonian gendarmes. Biya's Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma, responded by stating that anyone can use government equipment to commit false flag attacks, and said that Biya's government would investigate.

Individual sources testify that all of those sent to fight the secessionist militia are French speaking, thus widening the linguistic division between local residents.

On 14 November 2019, Biya admitted in a Paris forum of trying to assimilate former British Southern Cameroons into the majority Francophone system, formerly East Cameroon State but failed, due to identity differences, thus triggering the conflict.

Personal life
Biya became a naturalized citizen of France when he studied there, but he later relinquished his French citizenship when he returned to Cameroon to serve in government positions.

In 1961, he married Jeanne-Irène Biya, who did not have any children, though she adopted Franck Biya, who had been born in 1971 from a relationship between Biya and Jeanne-Irène's sister or niece. Franck Biya is seen as a possible successor of his father in the context of presidential elections scheduled for 2025.

Jeanne-Irène Biya died on 29 July 1992 after a short illness while Paul Biya was attending a conference abroad. Rumors have it that she and several people close to her did not die of natural causes.

Paul Biya married Chantal Vigouroux, who is 36 years his junior, on 23 April 1994, and has two more children with her, Paul Jr. and Brenda Biya.

Brenda Biya, who is also a LGBTQ activist, publicly revealed her same-sex relationship with Brazilian model Layyons Valença on 5 July 2024. She later stated that she hoped the post would change anti-LGBT laws in Cameroon. However, she deleted the post and broke up with Valença after explicit photos of them were released without her consent on the Internet. She reportedly accused Valença of sharing the photos "for the attention of [social media] followers and even extort money" on TikTok.

title: Paul Biya


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Pedro Pires

Pedro de Verona Rodrigues Pires (born 29 April 1934) is a Cape Verdean politician who served as Prime Minister of Cape Verde from 1975 to 1991, and later as President from 2001 to 2011.

Life and career
Pires was born in São Filipe, Fogo, Cape Verde to Luís Rodrigues Pires and wife Maria Fidalga Lopes. Later, he studied at Liceu Gil Eanes (Old High School) and Escola Jorge Barbosa in Mindelo during the 1950s and later abroad at the University of Lisbon in Portugal at the Faculty of Sciences. He fled to Conakry in 1962, then Ghana and afterwards headed to Algeria; he was trained in Cuba, the Soviet Union and Guinea-Bissau. He attended the Second PAIGC Congress in 1973. Before independence, he returned to Praia, Cape Verde on a Portuguese military ship on October 13, 1974.

Prime Minister
Three days after the country became independent in 1975, he became the first Prime Minister of Cape Verde; the nation at the time was a one-party state under the rule of the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). He opposed apartheid in South Africa and opposed foreign intervention in Africa. On October 20–22, 1980, he visited Paris. He visited that city again in 1989 and met with French Prime Minister Michel Rocard on 11 May 1989. He held additional portfolio of Minister of Finance from 1986 to 1990.

After the ruling PAICV decided to institute multiparty democracy in February 1990, Pires replaced President Aristides Pereira as General Secretary of PAICV in August 1990. The PAICV lost the multiparty parliamentary and presidential elections held in early 1991 and was left in opposition.

After being Prime Minister
At a party congress in August 1993, Pires was replaced as General Secretary by Aristides Lima and was instead elected as President of PAICV. As a candidate for the party presidency at PAICV's September 1997 congress, he faced José Maria Neves and prevailed with 68% of the vote. He stepped down as PAICV President in 2000 in preparation for a presidential bid in the next year's election and he was succeeded by Neves. He officially announced his candidacy for the Presidency of Cape Verde on September 5, 2000.

Pires was the PAICV candidate in the February 2001 presidential election, defeating former Prime Minister Carlos Veiga of the Movement for Democracy (MpD) in the second round by just 12 votes. Pires took office on March 22; the MpD boycotted his inauguration, saying that the election was marred by a "non-transparent process". As President, Pires appointed Neves as Prime Minister.

As president
On April 22, 2002, Pires was received the Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry of Portugal.

On June 7, 2005, the president paid hommage to Sergio Frusoni and declared him one of the Greatest Crioulo poets.

Days later on 16 and 17 June, he met and talked with the French Minister of Cooperation Brigitte Girardin in Praia for discussions with the Europe Union for obtaining special status, fight against insecurity.

When he was president, in October 2005, he visited Brazil, the capital city Brasília and met the president at the time Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He ran for a second term in the presidential election held on 12 February 2006 and again prevailed over Veiga, this time winning in the first round by a 51%-49% margin.

In May 2008, he said that he favored a cautious, long-term approach to the formation of a United States of Africa, preferring that regional integration precede a continent-wide union. He attended the Tokyo International Conference on African Development at this time. On March 26 and 27 2009, he met with the foreign minister José Brito, the French Minister of Immigration (which includes Solidarity Development) Éric Besson on examining projects for solidarity development.

After presidency
Pires was awarded the 2011 Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The prize was awarded in recognition of Pires role in making Cape Verde a "model of democracy, stability and increased prosperity". The prize includes a monetary component of $5m.

Personal life
He is married to Adélcia Barreto Pires, and has two children Sara and Indira.

Awards and decorations

 * Amílcar Cabral Order - 1st Class (Cabo Verde).png Order of Amílcar Cabral (Cape Verde)
 * GAM Order of the Republic of the Gambia ribbon.svg Grand Commander of the Order of the Republic of the Gambia, 2008
 * Amílcar Cabral Medal - Guinea Bissau
 * Order of José Martí, Cuba
 * Order of Christ, Portugal, in 1986
 * Order of Prince Henry, Portugal, in 2002
 * Doctor honoris causa, Lusophony University of Human Sciences, in the field of political sciences, 2011
 * Grand Cross of the National Order of the Lion, Senegal
 * Order_of_Timor-Leste_-_ribbon_bar.gif Order of East Timor, 2011

title: Pedro Pires


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Abel Pacheco

Abel Pacheco de la Espriella (born 22 December 1933) is a Costa Rican politician who was president of Costa Rica between 2002 and 2006, representing the Social Christian Unity Party (Partido Unidad Social Cristiana – PUSC). He ran on a platform to continue free market reforms and to institute an austerity program, and was elected, in a second electoral round, with 58% of the vote in April 2002.

Early life
Abel Pacheco and his first wife, Elsa María Muñoz Batha, had five children: Abel, Elsa, Yolanda, Sergio and Valeria. Pacheco married his second wife, Leila Rodríguez Stahl, a former Miss Costa Rica winner, on 20 November 1975. He and Rodríguez had one son, Fabian.

Career
Pacheco is a medical doctor who graduated from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México with a degree in Psychiatry from Louisiana State University.

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s Pacheco was a popular presenter of short programmes on Costa Rican television. During this time he continued to teach at the University of Costa Rica and personally attended to customers at the gentleman's outfitters,  El Palacio del Pantalón, that he had established in downtown San José in the mid-1980s. He also wrote a series of novels and a number of popular songs.

On 1 February 1998 he was elected to serve as a party-list deputy in Costa Rica's unicameral Legislative Assembly, representing the province of San José for the PUSC.

In the run-up to the 2002 presidential election, the PUSC party convention selected him to be its candidate by an overwhelming 76% of the delegates' votes on 10 June 2001. His candidacy was seen as a victory for the rank-and-file members over the party's entrenched hierarchy.

In the first round of the election Pacheco received 38.6% of the vote: just short of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off. On 7 April 2002, in the second round – the first time the mechanism had been used since the rules were introduced – Pacheco got 58% of the vote, beating Rolando Araya of the social democratic PLN by a narrow margin.

Books
Pacheco is the author of a number of books, including both, fiction and non-fiction. Among other titles of the books that he penned are: Paso de tropa (1969), and Más abajo de la piel (1972). His work has been translated to more than 20 different languages, given its importance to Costa Rican cultural heritage.

Abel Pacheco was awarded with the prize " Citizen of the World" for his valuable contribution to culture and literature around the world.

Foreign honours

 * 🇮🇹 Italy
 * Two Sicilian Royal Family: Knight Grand Cross of Merit of the Two Sicilian Royal Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George
 * 🇲🇨 Monaco: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles (21 November 2003)
 * Pacheco has received several international awards for his literature work.
 * Citizen of the World international award, given to exemplary citizens that have had a major contribution to the culture and arts in the world.
 * National Literature Prize for his book: " Mas abajo de la piel ".
 * Filantropic awards given his active contribution to Social Corporate Responsibility.

title: Abel Pacheco


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Markie Post

Marjorie Armstrong Post (November 4, 1950 – August 7, 2021), known professionally as Markie Post, was an American actress. Her best known roles include: bail bondswoman Terri Michaels in The Fall Guy on ABC from 1982 to 1985; public defender Christine Sullivan on the NBC sitcom Night Court from 1985 to 1992; Georgie Anne Lahti Hartman on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire from 1992 to 1995; and Barbara ‘Bunny’ Fletcher, the mother of Detective Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush), on the NBC drama series Chicago P.D. from 2014 to 2017.

Early life
Post was born in Palo Alto, California, on November 4, 1950. Her father, Richard F. Post, worked as a physicist; her mother, Marylee (Armstrong) Post, was a poet. The second of the couple's three children, she and her two siblings were raised in Stanford and Walnut Creek. She attended Las Lomas High School where she was a cheerleader. Post then attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and briefly attended Pomona College in California before returning to Lewis & Clark to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree.

Career
Prior to acting, Post worked on several game shows. She began her career with the production crew of the Tom Kennedy version of Split Second. She also served as associate producer of CBS's Double Dare and as a card dealer on NBC's Card Sharks. Later, after achieving fame as an actress, she played various game shows as a celebrity guest, including The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour, Super Password, The (New) $25,000 Pyramid, and The $100,000 Pyramid. She helped a contestant win the $100,000 grand prize in a November 1987 tournament episode of The $100,000 Pyramid.

Post's early acting credits included a 1979 episode of Barnaby Jones and the pilot episode of Simon & Simon "Details at Eleven" in 1981, episode one of season two of The Greatest American Hero, two episodes of The A-Team as two different characters in the 1983 episode "The Only Church in Town" and the 1984 episode "Hot Styles", and The Love Boat. She appeared in the science-fiction series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and as Diane Chambers' best friend in the sitcom Cheers, before eventually becoming a regular on the ABC action drama The Fall Guy. After The Fall Guy, she played Christine Sullivan on the 1980s television comedy series Night Court from the third season until the show's end. She played Georgie Anne Lahti Hartman on the comedy series Hearts Afire, co-starring John Ritter. Post also had regularly recurring guest-star roles on The District and on Scrubs as the mother of Dr. Elliot Reid.

Her film credits include There's Something About Mary (1998), in which Post played Mary's mother. She played a call girl and dominatrix in the 1988 TV movie Tricks of the Trade opposite Cindy Williams, and a singer in Glitz with Jimmy Smits, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard. She also had a starring role in NBC's 1995 movie Visitors in the Night. She appeared as reporter Christine Merriweather in the 2007 improvisational comedy film (released in 2017) Cook Off!. She appeared in the 30 Rock episode "The One with the Cast of Night Court" playing herself when Harry Anderson, Charles Robinson, and she staged a mock reunion of the Night Court cast.

Post was the voice of June Darby on the animated robot superhero TV series Transformers: Prime. She appeared as recurring character Barbara 'Bunny' Fletcher in the first four seasons of Chicago P.D.

Personal life
Post was married first to Stephen Knox, whom she met at Lewis & Clark College. She later married actor and writer Michael A. Ross, with whom she had two daughters.

Death
Post died at her home in Los Angeles, on August 7, 2021, after battling cancer for almost four years. She was 70 years old.

Awards and nominations

 * 1994 CableACE Award for Children's Program Special - 6 and Young (Presidential Inaugural Celebration for Children) – Won

title: Markie Post


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Azali Assoumani

Azali Assoumani (غزالي عثماني; born 1 January 1959) is a Comorian politician and military officer who has served as the President of the Comoros from 2002 to 2006 and again since 2016, except for a brief period in 2019. He became head of state after staging a coup d'état in 1999 and was elected president in 2002, 2016, 2019 and 2024. He also served as Chairperson of the African Union February 2023 to February 2024.

Early life
Born in French Comoros, Assoumani trained at the Meknes Royal Military Academy in Morocco and the École de Guerre in Paris.

Political career
Assoumani became the President of the Council of State of the Comoros in 1999 after overthrowing interim president Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde in a coup d'état. His troops justified the coup on the basis of protecting territorial integrity after Massounde had begun negotiations with representatives of the island of Anjouan for greater autonomy or independence. This was despite the fact that an international conference in Antananarivo had resulted in a settlement on the matter between the three islands of the Comoros, although the government of Anjouan had delayed ratifying the agreement.

On 23 December 2001, Assoumani's new proposed constitution was adopted by referendum. The constitution established a rotating presidency and granted considerable autonomy to the Comorian islands, each of which gained its own basic law, flag and executive branch of government. It also renamed the country from the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros to the Union of the Comoros and redesigned the national flag to remove its religious inscriptions and become multicolour, as can be seen today.

Assoumani announced elections for 2002, with violent clashes between state forces and the opposition erupting across the country during the campaign. Reports of arbitrary arrests also emerged. Assoumani resigned from his position as President of the Council of State on 21 January 2002, in order to run for President of the Union of the Comoros and was succeeded by Hamada Madi. Assoumani was then elected president with 75% of the vote in the multiparty 2002 Comorian presidential election, and was inaugurated on 26 May 2002.

Assoumani's presidency was marked by conflicts over jurisdiction and political gridlock due to his refusal to devolve power to the autonomous regions of the Comoros, as mandated by the constitution. The latter also required that successive presidents be from different islands, allowing Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi from Anjouan to succeed him after winning the 2006 presidential election.

Assoumani launched a second presidential bid in the 2016 presidential election. In the first round on 21 February, he came third with 14.96% of the vote, before winning the second round with 40.98% of the vote on 10 April. However, both Assoumani and his opponent Mohamed Ali Solihi disputed the election result, alleging irregularities and electoral fraud in the second round. Assoumani demanded the invalidation of ballots from most of the polling stations on Anjouan in particular. Consequently, a third round of voting took place on 11 May. The Constitutional Court declared Assoumani the winner with 41.43% of the vote on 15 May, and he took office on 26 May for a five-year term. His first vice-president was Djaffar Ahmed Said, the former attorney-general and director of judicial affairs, who was later replaced by Moustadroine Aboudou from Anjouan and then Abdallah Said Sarouma from Mohéli.

During his tenure, the opposition accused Assoumani of having amended the constitution to remain in power until 2029. In addition, his closing of the Constitutional Court and Anti-Corruption Court caused the European Union to suspend all cooperation with the Comoros in protest.

On 13 February 2019, Assoumani resigned the presidency to campaign for re-election in the 2019 Comorian presidential election on 24 March. He was elected in the first round and assumed office again on 3 April.

Diplomacy
In 2022, Assoumani was invited by President Paul Biya of Cameroon to open the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations at Olembe Stadium, Yaoundé. On 28 September 2022, on the occasion of the state funeral for Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister, in Tokyo, Assoumani was one of only seven heads of state who met with Japanese Emperor Naruhito. In July 2023, Assoumani, also in his capacity as Chairperson of the African Union, attended the 2023 Russia–Africa Summit in St. Petersburg in which Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to continue efforts to posture Russia as a more attractive ally to African partner states than Western liberal democracies.

title: Azali Assoumani


text:
Moebius

Moebius, Mœbius, Möbius or Mobius may refer to:

People

 * August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer
 * Theodor Möbius (1821–1890), German philologist
 * Karl Möbius (1825–1908), German zoologist and ecologist
 * Paul Julius Möbius (1853–1907), German neurologist
 * Dieter Moebius (1944–2015), German/Swiss musician
 * Mark Mobius (born 1936), emerging markets investments pioneer
 * Jean Giraud (1938–2012), French comics artist who used the pseudonym Mœbius

Fictional characters

 * Mobius M. Mobius, a character in Marvel Comics
 * Mobius, also known as the Anti-Monitor, a supervillain in DC Comics
 * Moebius, the main antagonistic faction of Xenoblade Chronicles 3
 * Mobius, or Dr. Ignatio Mobius, a character in the Command & Conquer series
 * Moebius the Timestreamer, a character in the Legacy of Kain series
 * Mobius 1, the call sign of the main character of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
 * Moebius Foundation and its military wing Moebius Corps, a faction in Starcraft II
 * Mobius, the main antagonist of the Old World Blues DLC of Fallout: New Vegas
 * Mobius, the main antagonist organization from The Evil Within series
 * Mobius, a character from the game Honkai Impact 3rd

Mathematics

 * Möbius energy, a particular knot energy
 * Möbius strip, an object with one surface and one edge
 * Möbius function, an important multiplicative function in number theory and combinatorics
 * Möbius transform, transform involving the Möbius function
 * Möbius inversion formula, in number theory
 * Möbius transformation, a particular rational function in geometry and complex analysis
 * Möbius configuration, in geometry, a certain configuration in Euclidean space or projective space, consisting of two mutually inscribed tetrahedra
 * Möbius–Kantor configuration, in geometry, a configuration consisting of eight points and eight lines, with three points on each line and three lines through each point
 * Möbius–Kantor graph, in graph theory, a symmetric bipartite cubic graph with 16 vertices and 24 edges
 * Möbius plane, a particular kind of plane geometry, built upon some affine planes by adding one point
 * Möbius ladder, a cubic circulant graph

Video games

 * Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony (1985)
 * Moebius: Empire Rising (2014)
 * Mobius Final Fantasy (2015)

Companies

 * Mobius Digital, the developer of Outer Wilds
 * Rockstar Leeds, formerly known as Möbius Entertainment

Music

 * Mobius Band, an American electronic rock trio
 * Mobius (album), a 1975 album by pianist Cedar Walton
 * "The Moebius", a song by Orbital on Orbital, 1991
 * "Mobius", a song by A Tribe Called Quest on We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, 2016

Science and technology

 * Möbius aromaticity, a special type of aromaticity found in some organic molecules
 * Möbius benzene, also known as trans-benzene, an isomer of benzene demonstrating Möbius aromaticity
 * Möbius (crater), a lunar crater
 * Möbius–Hückel concept, one of two predicting reaction allowedness versus forbiddenness
 * Mobius Science Center, a planned science museum in Spokane, Washington, United States
 * Möbius syndrome, or Moebius, a rare congenital disorder resulting in facial paralysis
 * Möbius resistor, in electronics

Television and film

 * "Moebius" (Stargate SG-1), a 2005 two-part episode of the science fiction TV series Stargate SG-1
 * Silent Möbius, a 1991 series of manga, anime, and film
 * Ultraman Mebius, a Japanese television series, and the titular superhero
 * Moebius (1996 film), an Argentine film
 * Moebius (2013 film), a South Korean film
 * Möbius (film), a Russian-French 2013 film with Jean Dujardin

Other uses

 * Mobius Artists Group, international group of experimental artists
 * Mobius, an Earth-like planet and setting of several early Sonic the Hedgehog adaptations
 * Mevius, a derivative of the name Möbius used as a brand name for Japanese cigarettes
 * Möbius, one of the three physicists in the play The Physicists by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
 * MOBIUS, a library consortium in Missouri, United States
 * Mobius Loop roller coaster
 * Moebius Models, a company that makes plastic scale models.
 * Mobius Motors, a Kenyan car manufacturer
 * Moebius Syndrome Foundation, a charitable foundation committed to raising awareness and support for those who have the rare congenital disorder Moebius syndrome.
 * Moebius, a gang in the Tokyo Revengers manga
 * Mobius, an American publisher owned by Hachette UK

title: Moebius


text:
New Jersey Generals

The New Jersey Generals were a franchise of the United States Football League (USFL) established in 1982 to begin play in the spring and summer of 1983. The team played three seasons from 1983 to 1985, winning 31 regular season games and losing 25 while going 0–2 in postseason competition. Home games were played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which was called The Meadowlands for Generals games.

Uniforms
Team colors were scarlet, white, royal blue and sunflower gold. The primary logo was a gold five-star general wreath. Team helmets were solid scarlet with the logo decal on each side and a white face-mask. Home uniforms featured red jerseys with white numbers trimmed in royal blue, with numbers on the sleeves and no striping; pants were white with a single wide red stripe trimmed in blue down the sides from hip to knee. Road jerseys were white with red numbers trimmed in blue. The team was the second in the New York metropolitan area to be known as "Generals," since there was a professional soccer team in the late 1960s known as the New York Generals.

1983
From the beginning, USFL founder David Dixon placed a premium on putting a team in the New York area. Initially, Donald Trump was tapped to own the team. However, he backed out after paying an initial installment on the franchise fee, hoping instead to buy the struggling Baltimore Colts of the NFL. Needing a credible owner with the means to front a team in the nation's biggest market, Dixon persuaded Oklahoma oil magnate J. Walter Duncan to step in. Duncan had originally been slated to own the USFL's Chicago franchise, as he'd grown up in Chicago. However, he readily agreed to shift to New York.

Duncan took on former New England Patriots coach Chuck Fairbanks as a minority partner; Duncan knew Fairbanks from his days as head coach at the University of Oklahoma. Fairbanks also served as general manager and head coach. They initially had an uphill battle to get a lease at Giants Stadium, but were able to obtain one on condition that they brand their team as "New Jersey" rather than "New York." They named the team the "Generals" after the large number of generals based in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War.

The team made a big splash by signing Heisman Trophy-winning underclassman Herschel Walker, a running back from the University of Georgia. While the USFL had followed the NFL's lead in banning underclassmen from playing, league officials were certain that this rule would never withstand a court challenge. In an even more ominous development, Walker did not sign a standard player contract. Rather, he agreed to a three-year personal-services contract with Duncan. The contract was valued at $4.2 million—more than double the USFL's salary cap of $1.8 million. Nonetheless, the other owners knew having the incumbent Heisman winner in their fold would lend the USFL instant credibility, and allowed the contract to stand.

Despite the signing of Walker, who rushed for 1,812 yards and 17 touchdowns, the Generals finished their inaugural season with a 6–12 record. This was largely due to a porous defense which gave up the third-most points in the league (437) and a feeble passing attack led by ex-New Orleans Saints career backup Bobby Scott.

1984
At 66 years old, Duncan soon tired of flying as far as 1500 mi from his home in Oklahoma City to see his team play. Believing that the Generals were far too important to the USFL to have an absentee owner, he decided to sell to a local buyer. After the 1983 season, he found one in Donald Trump, who had initially angled for the franchise in 1982 before backing out.

Trump promptly fired Fairbanks. Seeking a high-profile coach, he initially tried to lure Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins. When those talks failed, he turned to legendary Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula. Trump offered him a $5 million contract. Shula was receptive, but insisted on getting a rent-free apartment at Trump Tower. In October 1983, Trump announced that the deal was all but done, but the only snag was Shula's insistence on an apartment. A furious Shula broke off talks. Years later, former Dolphins' running back Larry Csonka, by then an executive with the Jacksonville Bulls, said that he believed Shula would have taken the job, but was angered at being "thrown out to the press" by Trump. After Joe Paterno of Penn State turned him down as well, Trump hired former New York Jets head coach Walt Michaels.

The Generals responded to their poor 1983 showing with an influx of veteran NFL talent for 1984, including wide receiver Tom McConnaughey, quarterback Brian Sipe, defensive back Gary Barbaro, and linebackers Jim LeClair and Bobby Leopold. Both Walker and fullback Maurice Carthon rushed for over 1,000 yards (Walker 1,339; Carthon 1,042) as the Generals went 14–4, defeating the eventual champion Philadelphia Stars twice for that franchise's only two losses of the season. The Stars defeated the Generals 28–7 in a first round playoff game.

1984 schedule and results
Sources

1985
The 1985 season saw the heralded signing of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Doug Flutie of Boston College. Despite Flutie's inexperience, the Generals traded Sipe to the Jacksonville Bulls to ensure Flutie would start. Flutie struggled at times but played well overall until he suffered a broken collarbone against the Memphis Showboats in the season's 15th game, sidelining him for the rest of the season. The 1985 Generals finished 11–7 behind Walker's pro-football record 2,411 rushing yards but lost again to the Stars (transplanted to Baltimore) in the first round of the playoffs, 20–17.

1985 schedule and results
Sources

1986
Almost from the moment he bought the Generals, Trump sought to use them as a vehicle to get an NFL team. To this end, he began advocating moving the USFL from a spring schedule to a fall schedule, directly opposite the NFL. Trump's long-term plans called for moving the Generals across the Hudson River to New York, which had not had a team play within its borders since the Jets moved from Shea Stadium in Queens to the Meadowlands after the 1983 season. He intended to have the renamed New York Generals play at Shea until the construction of a new 80,000-seat "Trump Stadium" in Manhattan; the stadium never came to fruition.

In 1984, Trump convinced most of his fellow owners to move to a fall schedule in 1986. He contended that if the USFL were to hold its own against the NFL, it would eventually force a merger with the more established league—in which the owners of any USFL teams included in a merger would see their investment more than double.

The Generals acquired the assets of one of the teams displaced by the vote to move to the fall, the Houston Gamblers, during the extended off-season. This was widely reported as a merger, since the Generals inherited all of the Gamblers' player contracts—including those of quarterback Jim Kelly and wide receiver Ricky Sanders. Michaels was fired, replaced with former Gamblers coach Jack Pardee, who planned to bring Kelly and the Gamblers' high-powered run and shoot offense with him. Fans immediately dubbed the Kelly–Walker led Generals as the USFL's "Dream Team."

However, the revamped Generals never played a down. The 1986 season was cancelled after the USFL won only a nominal one dollar verdict in an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL (which was trebled to three dollars due to it being an antitrust suit); the league folded soon afterward.

Numerous Generals players, including Flutie, Walker, and center Kent Hull went on to productive NFL careers. Flutie also starred in the Canadian Football League; Hull (with Gambler quarterback Kelly) played in four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills, and Flutie was the last quarterback to have led the Bills to the NFL playoffs until the 2017 season.

Single-season leaders

 * Rushing yards: 2,411 Herschel Walker (1985; USFL record)
 * Receiving yards: 715 Sam Bowers (1983)
 * Passing yards: 2,540 Brian Sipe (1984)
 * Sacks: 13 James Lockette (1985)

Season-by-season
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" ! rowspan="2"|Season !! colspan="4"|Regular season !! colspan="3"|Playoffs ! W !! L !! T !! Finish !! W !! L !! Results ! Total !! 31 !! 23 !! 0 !!  !! 0 !! 2 !!
 * 1983 || 6 || 12 || 0 || 3rd, Atlantic || — || — || —
 * 1984 || 14 || 4 || 0 || 2nd, Atlantic || 0 || 1 || Lost Divisional Playoffs (Philadelphia)
 * 1985 || 11 || 7 || 0 || 2nd, Eastern || 0 || 1 || Lost Quarterfinals (Baltimore)
 * 1984 || 14 || 4 || 0 || 2nd, Atlantic || 0 || 1 || Lost Divisional Playoffs (Philadelphia)
 * 1985 || 11 || 7 || 0 || 2nd, Eastern || 0 || 1 || Lost Quarterfinals (Baltimore)
 * 1985 || 11 || 7 || 0 || 2nd, Eastern || 0 || 1 || Lost Quarterfinals (Baltimore)

title: New Jersey Generals