Nikifor Popov
Nikifor Popov (2 June 1911, in Khabarovsk – after 1980) was a Russian long-distance runner who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1952 Summer Olympics in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres as a 40 year old, in the process or qualifying for the Olympics setting the Masters M40 World record in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres. His record in the 5,000 lasted just over 20 years before it was surpassed by French Olympian Michel Bernard. He is reported to have improved upon his own record in the 10,000 three years later. His 10,000 record was beaten 12 years after the initial setting by another French Olympian, 1956 Marathon gold medalist Alain Mimoun.
United Nations Regional Groups
the African Group, with 54 member states the Asia - Pacific Group, with 53 member states the Eastern European Group, with 23 member states the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC), with 33 member states the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), with 28 member states, plus 1 member state (the United States) as an observer state.
Iran
On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded the Iranian Khuzestan, and the Iran–Iraq War began. Although the forces of Saddam Hussein made several early advances, by mid 1982, the Iranian forces successfully managed to drive the Iraqi army back into Iraq. In July 1982, with Iraq thrown on the defensive, Iran took the decision to invade Iraq and conducted countless offensives in a bid to conquer Iraqi territory and capture cities, such as Basra. The war continued until 1988, when the Iraqi army defeated the Iranian forces inside Iraq and pushed the remaining Iranian troops back across the border. Subsequently, Khomeini accepted a truce mediated by the UN. The total Iranian casualties in the war were estimated to be 123,220–160,000 KIA, 60,711 MIA, and 11,000–16,000 civilians killed.
M2 mine
The M2 is a United States bounding anti-personnel mine used during World War II. A number of variants of the mine were produced and although the mine is no longer in US service, it can be found in Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Korea, Laos, Oman, Rwanda, Tunisia and the Western Sahara. Copies of the mine were produced by Belgium (as the PRB M966), Pakistan (P7), Portugal (M/966) and Taiwan.
Ekhrajiha
Ekhrajiha (, The Outcast) is a 2007 Iranian film, written and directed by Masoud Dehnamaki, narrating a story during Iran–Iraq War.
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War (also called Operation Iraqi Freedom). The invasion phase began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the ``end of major combat operations '', after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region in West Asia situated within the Tigris -- Euphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish -- Syrian and Iran -- Iraq borders.
Mid-twentieth century baby boom
The end of World War II brought a baby boom to many countries, especially Western ones. There is some disagreement as to the precise beginning and ending dates of the post-war baby boom, but it is most often agreed to have begun in the years immediately after the war, though some place it earlier at the increase of births in 1941 - 1943. The boom started to decline as birth rates in the United States started to decline in 1958, though the boom would only grind to a halt 3 years later in 1961, 20 years after it began.
Bertie Felstead
Bertie Felstead (28 October 1894 – 22 July 2001) was a British soldier, World War I veteran and centenarian who gained fame at the end of his life as (or was believed so at the time to be) the last surviving soldier to have taken part in the Christmas truce of 1914.
Southern Europe
The Reconquista of Portugal and Spain led to a series of oceanic explorations resulting in the Age of Discovery that established direct links with Africa, the Americas, and Asia, while religious wars continued to be fought in Europe, which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. The Spanish crown maintained its hegemony in Europe and was the leading power on the continent until the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which ended a conflict between Spain and France that had begun during the Thirty Years' War. An unprecedented series of major wars and political revolutions took place around Europe and indeed the world in the period between 1610 and 1700. Observers at the time, and many historians since, have argued that wars caused the revolutions. Galileo Galilei, invented the telescope and the thermometer which allowed him to observe and describe the solar system. Leonardo da Vinci painted the most famous work in the world. Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio.
In the Alleys of Love
In the Alleys of Love (, "Dar Koocheha-ye Eshgh") is an Iranian war film about the city of Khorramshahr shortly after the Iran–Iraq War. The film was shot in colour on 35 mm film.
War on Terror
Following the ceasefire agreement that suspended hostilities (but not officially ended) in the 1991 Gulf War, the United States and its allies instituted and began patrolling Iraqi no-fly zones, to protect Iraq's Kurdish and Shi'a Arab population—both of which suffered attacks from the Hussein regime before and after the Gulf War—in Iraq's northern and southern regions, respectively. U.S. forces continued in combat zone deployments through November 1995 and launched Operation Desert Fox against Iraq in 1998 after it failed to meet U.S. demands of "unconditional cooperation" in weapons inspections.
Ayesha Gaddafi
In 2010 after sanctions were imposed on Iraq, she arrived in Baghdad with a delegation of 69 officials. Shortly before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, she met with Saddam Hussein. In 2011, she strongly denounced the policies of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. President Barack Obama, calling for a mediation of the Libyan Civil War through an international organization which would exclude them.Ayesha has served as a mediator on behalf of the government with European Union corporations.
United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War
United States support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran -- Iraq War, against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual - use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, and special operations training. At no point, however, did the U.S. directly supply arms to Iraq. Of particular interest for contemporary Iran -- United States relations are the repeated accusations that the U.S. government actively encouraged Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invade Iran (proponents of this theory frequently describe the U.S. as having given Saddam a ``green light ''), supported by a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence, but the U.S. government officially denies that any such collusion occurred, and no conclusive proof of it has been found by scholars that have studied the issue.
Near East
The term middle east as a noun and adjective was common in the 19th century in nearly every context except diplomacy and archaeology. An uncountable number of places appear to have had their middle easts from gardens to regions, including the United States. The innovation of the term "Near East" to mean the holdings of the Ottoman Empire as early as the Crimean War had left a geographical gap. The East Indies, or "Far East," derived ultimately from Ptolemy's "India Beyond the Ganges." The Ottoman Empire ended at the eastern border of Iraq. "India This Side of the Ganges" and Iran had been omitted. The archaeologists counted Iran as "the Near East" because Old Persian cuneiform had been found there. This usage did not sit well with the diplomats; India was left in an equivocal state. They needed a regional term.
Shahid Dastgerdi Stadium
The Shahid Dastgerdi Stadium (also known as PAS Tehran Stadium) () is a football stadium located in the Ekbatan area of Tehran, Iran. It was named after a casualty of the Iran–Iraq War. It is the former home of PAS Tehran F.C. and now hosts the Iran national under-20 football team.
Somalis
Ancient rock paintings in Somalia which date back to 5000 years have been found in the northern part of the country, depicting early life in the territory. The most famous of these is the Laas Geel complex, which contains some of the earliest known rock art on the African continent and features many elaborate pastoralist sketches of animal and human figures. In other places, such as the northern Dhambalin region, a depiction of a man on a horse is postulated as being one of the earliest known examples of a mounted huntsman.
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran, northeastern Syria and Kuwait), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran (Elam, Media, Parthia and Persia), Anatolia / Asia Minor and Armenian Highlands (Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region, Armenia, northwestern Iran, southern Georgia, and western Azerbaijan), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan), Cyprus and the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history.
Operation Praying Mantis
Operation Praying Mantis was an attack on 18 April 1988, by U.S. forces within Iranian territorial waters in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq War and the subsequent damage to an American warship.

Question: How many countries on the continent of Nikifor Popov's birth does the mediator of the truce ending the Iran-Iraq War recognize?
Answer: 53 member states