Public investment in East Pakistan increases, although…

Hawaii (August 21, 1959), bringing the total to fifty.

Work begins in 1959 on Danish architect Jorn Utzon’s distinctive design for the Sydney Opera House, scheduled for completion in four years with a budget of AUS $7 million.

Mao’s Great Leap Forward devolves into chaos upon the Soviet’s withdrawal of aid to China’s agricultural and industrial push.

Chinese troops crush the Tibetan rebellion in 1959 and suppress Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama flees with 100,000 Tibetans to India.

China and Russia quarel over communist policies towards the West.

Kerry Thornley is assigned to the U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan in 1959.

The 1959 collapse of Laos’s coalition governent, one of a series in which the Pathet Lao participate, is followed by a series of coups.

A 40,000 strong mercenary force allegedly recruited by the CIA and known as the Armeé Clandestine (“secret army”) draws half its members from Thailand and the rest from South Korea, Taiwan and other US client states.

The Armeé Clandestine begins operations against the Pathet Lao.

An increasingly authoritarian Sukarno dissolves Indonesia’s elected parliament in 1959.

As the Uzbek S.S.R.

slowly regains direct contact with the outside world, Uzbeks rise to high levels in Soviet politics.

Nuritdin A. Muhitdinov, Sharaf R. Rashidov, and Yadgar S. Nasriddinova give Uzbeks greater visibility in the USSR, serving actively in Soviet diplomacy and foreign affairs.

From 1959, Rashidov, the Uzbek Communist party chief, rules the Uzbek S.S.R.

The Bilderberg group holds its 1959 meeting is held in Yeşilköy, Turkey, a village and a sea resort on the Marmara Sea about eleven kilometers (seven miles) west of Istanbul's historic city center.

The rebels of the Omani interior are finally forced to surrender in early 1959.

The sultan, after terminating the 1920 treaty, subsequently voids the office of imam.

Egypt forms the United Arab Republic with Syria; Syria will withdraw shortly after.

The site of Islamabad, located on the Potwar Plateau, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Rawalpindi, the interim capital, is chosen by a commission in 1959 after Karachi is found unsuitable as the capital.

Pakistan's capital is transferred from Karachi to Rawalpindi in 1959.

The army maintains low visibility and seems content to uphold the traditional social order.

By early 1959, most army units have resumed their regular duties.

Pakistan's tentative approaches to China intensify after March 1959 when China's occupation of Tibet and the flight of the Dalai Lama to India end five years of Chinese-Indian friendship.

Ayub Khan is the architect of Pakistan's policy of close alignment with the United States, and his first major foreign policy act is to sign bilateral economic and military agreements with the United States.

Pakistan remains a member of the Baghdad pact, converted into the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) after Iraq's withdrawal in 1959.

Ayub Khan generally leaves administration in the hands of the civil bureaucracy, with some exceptions.

The land-reform program begins to deal with the problems of large-scale, often absentee ownership of land and the excessive fragmentation of small holdings by introducing maximum and minimum area limits.

Under the Land Reform Commission, which was established the previous autumn, the government imposes a ceiling of 200 hectares of irrigated land and 400 hectares of unirrigated land in the West Wing for a single holding, thereby reducing the power of the landed aristocracy, which opposes Ayub Khan.

In the East Wing, the landholding ceiling is raised from thirty-three hectares to forty-eight hectares.

Landholders retain their dominant positions in the social hierarchy and their political influence, but heed Ayub Khan's warnings against political assertiveness.

The Export Bonus Vouchers Scheme and tax incentives stimulate new industrial entrepreneurs and exporters.

Bonus vouchers facilitate access to foreign exchange for imports of industrial machinery and raw materials.

The government offers tax concessions for investment in less-developed areas.

These measures have important consequences in bringing industry to Punjab and give rise to a new class of small industrialists.

Ayub Khan seeks to create political institutions that will express Islamic ideals and foster national development.

He initiates a plan for "basic democracies," directly elected by the people, as local units of development.

Ayub Khan's martial law regime, critics observe, is a form of "representational dictatorship," but the new political system, introduced in 1959, is an apt expression of what Ayub Khan calls the particular "genius" of Pakistan.

Ayub Khan does not believe that a sophisticated parliamentary democracy is suitable for Pakistan.

Instead, the Basic Democracies, as the individual administrative units are called, are intended to initiate and educate a largely illiterate population in the working of government by giving them limited representation and associating them with decision making at a "level commensurate with their ability." Basic Democracies are concerned with no more than local government and rural development.

They are meant to provide a two-way channel of communication between the Ayub Khan regime and the common people and allow social change to move slowly.

The Basic Democracy system establishes five tiers of institutions.

The lowest but most important tier is composed of union councils, one each for groups of villages having an approximate total population of 10,000.

Each union council is composed of ten directly elected members and five appointed members, all called Basic Democrats.

Union councils are responsible for local agricultural and community development and for rural law and order maintenance; they are empowered to impose local taxes for local projects.

These powers, however, are more than balanced at the local level by the fact that the controlling authority for the union councils is the deputy commissioner, whose high status and traditionally paternalistic attitudes often elicit obedient cooperation rather than demands.

The next tier consists of the tehsil (subdistrict) councils, which perform coordination functions.

Above them, the district (zilla) councils, chaired by the deputy commissioners, are composed of nominated official and nonofficial members, including the chairmen of union councils.

The district councils are assigned both compulsory and optional functions pertaining to education, sanitation, local culture, and social welfare.

Above them, the divisional advisory councils coordinate the activities with representatives of government departments.

The highest tier consists of one development advisory council for each province, chaired by the governor and appointed by the president.

The urban areas have a similar arrangement, under which the smaller union councils are grouped together into municipal committees to perform similar duties.

The National Assembly, consisting of 156 members (including six women) and elected by an electoral college of 80,000 Basic Democrats is established as the federal legislature.

Legislative powers are divided between the National Assembly and provincial legislative assemblies.

The National Assembly is to hold sessions alternatively in Islamabad and Dhaka; the Supreme Court will also hold sessions in Dhaka.