FW: Victory: Reed Elsevier gives in

["Marta Bunge" <martabunge@hotmail.com>]

>From: "Nick Gill" <nickgill@cantab.net>
>To: nickgill@cantab.net
>CC: "Tom Stafford" <t.stafford@sheffield.ac.uk>
>Subject: Victory: Reed Elsevier gives in
>Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 17:12:40 +0100 (BST)
>
>Dear friend,
>
>Reed Elsevier today announced that they are "withdrawing from the defence
>industry". The reason they cite is the criticism that they have received
>from the scientific and medical community, as well as from their own
>employees.
>
>Their press release can be found here:
>http://www.reed-elsevier.com/index.cfm?articleid=2084
>A message from Sir Crispin Davis, CEO of Reed Elsevier, is copied at the
>bottom of this email.
>
>This announcement represents a brilliant victory for all of you who have
>participated in the campaign against Reed Elsevier in a multitude of
>different ways. People have signed petitions, joined the boycott, written
>personal and collective letters, forwarded emails and told their friends,
>attended vigils, protested at Reed's AGM and the list goes on.
>
>Unfortunately it would appear likely that Reed Elsevier will still
>organise the DSEi arms fair in London later this year. This arms fair is
>one of the biggest in the world - the 2005 event was targeted by
>protestors who highlighted the cluster bombs manufacturers who attended,
>as well as representatives of regimes with appalling human rights records.
>Nonetheless DSEi 2007 is likely to be one of the very last arms fairs
>organised by Reed Elsevier.
>
>There are still good reasons for academics to dislike Reed Elsevier. I
>refer the interested reader to this excellent article by Prof John Baez:
>http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html
>
>Best wishes and many, many thanks for your support,
>Nick Gill
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Message from Sir Crispin Davis, Reed Elsevier CEO:
>
>Dear Colleagues
>
>We are announcing today that we plan to exit the defence exhibitions
>business.
>
>Over the last year or so it has become increasingly clear that growing
>numbers of important customers and authors, particularly in the science and
>medical markets, have very real concerns with our involvement in this
>sector.  They believe strongly that our presence here is incompatible with
>the aims of the science and medical communities.  I am also very aware this
>is a view shared by a number of our employees.  We have listened closely to
>these concerns and we have concluded that the long term interests of Reed
>Elsevier as a leading publisher of science, medical, legal and business
>content would be best served by withdrawing from defence exhibitions.  We
>intend to complete the withdrawal during the second half of 2007.
>
>We will of course fulfil all our contractual obligations with our partners
>in the defence business in the interim.
>
>This has not been an easy decision.  While the defence exhibitions business
>is quite small, accounting for around 0.5% of total Group revenue, it is a
>high quality business, with strong management and good growth.  It is an
>important industry in ensuring countries have effective defence capability,
>as enshrined in the UN Charter. Our people in Reed Exhibitions have worked
>very hard to make these businesses successful and run them to the highest
>standards, for which I would like to thank them. Nevertheless, we believe
>the growing and genuine concerns of increasing numbers of our customers
>must
>be paramount.
>
>Regards

************************************************
Marta Bunge
Professor Emerita
Dept of Mathematics and Statistics
McGill University
805 Sherbrooke St. West
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2K6
Office: (514) 398-3810
Home: (514) 935-3618
marta.bunge@mcgill.ca
http://www.math.mcgill.ca/~bunge/
************************************************