Another controversy over history may be rekindled ... this time with Japan. Civic groups from South Korea, China and Japan are warning that a school in Tokyo is likely to adopt a controversial high school history textbook next year.

At a news conference in Seoul Friday, a Japanese civic group said a public secondary school in Tokyo that will open in April 2005 is highly likely to adopt a history textbook that allegedly whitewashes Japan's wartime atrocities and militarism.

The textbook was compiled by members of the strongly nationalistic Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, and was authorized in 2001 by the Japanese Education Ministry for use in schools.

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform is currently engaged in a campaign to persuade more than 10 percent of schools in Japan to use its controversial textbook.