Terra Nullius "Oral tradition was established through different means, through passing on custodianship and clan structure, and this could easily be ignored by Europeans coming into the country who only recognised the written word", says Professor Stephen Muecke, University of Technology, Sydney. The Supreme Court has put the doctrine of "terra nullius" in doubt legally and opened the way for indigenous people to make claim to crown lands. Producer Justine Langford explores the history of Aboriginal and European attitudes to land boundaries. What happened when one cultural philosophy clashed with another and when one "map" of this country was forcibly superimposed upon another? ABC Radio National, Sunday, July 23, 2.05pm.
Radio-Eye: Tokyo's Burning — The most devastating civic fire in history occurred 50 years ago in Tokyo. In just a few hours on the night of March 10, 1945, about a hundred thousand people died and a million homes were destroyed. The fire was the deliberate design of the US air force's youngest general, Curtis LeMay, the same general who supervised the strategic bombing of Vietnam in the late 1960s. In this special feature, Tony Barrell talks to eyewitnesses, victims, participants and observers in Japan and the USA. The horror of Tokyo is assessed in the context of the development of "strategic" terror bombing of civilians, culminating in the nightmares of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the threat of ICBMs. ABC Radio National, Sunday, July 23, 8.30pm.