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Trouble is brewing over teaching materials designed by the Busan chapter of the Korean Teachers Union that cast a satirical look at the upcoming APEC forum from an anti-globalization perspective. The summit takes place in the southern port city this month.
A 17-minute video lampoons President Roh Moo-hyun, U.S President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, while 35 pages of text deal mainly with negative aspects of the regional economic gathering.
The video shows Bush as given to spitting expletives and is full of four-letter-words and abusive language.
The written material devotes a single page to positive aspects of the gathering but accentuates the negative and invites readers to stage their own anti-APEC protest.
In other materials, APEC is described as an organization that endorses Bush¡¯s invasion of Iraq, represents the interests of multinational corporations and the U.S., and threatens the lives of the poor. It calls Bush a warmonger and symbol of human rights abuses.
However, the Busan Office of Education said no schools were actually using the union¡¯s APEC materials. ¡°We will issue strongly worded guidelines to prevent these materials from being used in class and take legal action if the union goes ahead¡± with using the materials, the office said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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