Yokohama OKs disputed history text

YOKOHAMA--Students at municipal junior high schools in eight of this city's 18 wards will be required from next spring to use a controversial history textbook that critics say justifies Japan's militarism in the first half of the 20th century.

The Yokohama city board of education approved use of the textbook Tuesday.

The text was compiled under the initiative of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Jiyuusha.

It will be the first time public junior high schools in the city use one of the society's textbooks. Of 145 public junior high schools in the city, 71 schools with about 39,000 students will use the text.(IHT/Asahi: August 5,2009)