I am very happy to announce this big news, which changes my previous attacks to Elseviers considerably, although when I raised the problem, in A paper rejected by Int. J. Fatigue --- Persistent Nepotism in Peer Reviews thematter  was still unsolved:  I guess I need to reconsider my My letter of resignation from the board of Int J Solids and Structures / ELSEVIER at least for this part.  Congratulation to Elsevier, I hope I have contributed to this progress.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/29/exhibition.weaponstechnol...

Reed Elsevier sells defence exhibitions

• Katie Allen
• guardian.co.uk,
• Thursday May 29, 2008
• Article history

Exhibitions organiser Reed Elsevier
has finally exited arms trade fairs - five months later than it
originally promised angry shareholders and staff.

The company's
chief executive, Crispin Davis, had said last summer that Reed would
sever ties with the arms industry by the end of 2007 in response to
pressure, including from anti-arms-trade campaigners and writers at
Reed Elsevier's scientific journals.

Today, the company said it
had sold the DSEi, ITEC and LAAD defence exhibitions to the UK's
largest independent exhibitions group, Clarion Events, for an
undiclosed sum.

"The sale of these three exhibitions to Clarion
Events completes Reed Exhibitions' withdrawal from the
defence-exhibitions sector announced in 2007," it said in a statement.

Clarion,
which organises 80 exhibitions every year in the UK and abroad across
the leisure-to-financial sector, said the deal marked its first move
into the defence shows.

"The events we have acquired in the
defence-and-security sector are a valuable and profitable addition to
our portfolio and fit perfectly with our strategy for international
expansion," said Clarion Events' chief executive, Simon Kimble.

Asked
about ethical concerns over the move, Kimble added: "The events we have
acquired are thriving events with full government support, serving only
the legitimate global defence-and-security industry. Exhibitors and
visitors must adhere to the highest regulatory scrutiny, not just
complying with but exceeding UK and international law.

"Defence
and security is a legitimate business like any other and we will apply
the same very high standards, rigour, experience and skill to
organising events in this sector as we do in all of our others."

Reed's
decision last June to stop organising defence shows followed a long
campaign over its involvement in several defence shows, including one
in London.

The Campaign Against Arms Trade had argued Reed's
involvement in the arms trade was incompatible with its position as the
number one publisher of medical and science journals.

Reed, which
is currently selling its trade and specialist publications such as
Farmers Weekly and New Scientist, had drawn particular criticism over
its defence links from its top title, medical journal The Lancet. The
magazine's staff struggled to reconcile ties to the arms trade with a
publication often covering the impact of war.

A host of
internationally renowned writers including J M Coetzee, Ian McEwan and
Arabella Weir, also joined the campaign, writing a public letter to
coincide with the Reed-organised London Book Fair. The authors said
they were appalled their trade should be "commercially connected to one
which exacerbates insecurity and repression".

Shareholders also
added their voices to the anti-arms fairs lobby, cutting their stakes
in the company and vowing not to re-invest until Reed had pulled out of
defence exhbitions.

FTSE 100-listed Reed, which claims defence
shows accounted for less than 1% of its annual turnover, had previously
maintained it viewed the defence industry as "necessary to the
preservation of freedom and national security" and that its exhibitions
assisted in ensuring there is a regulated market.