UNCA Advisory: Announcing A Book Launch Presented by: The United Nations Correspondents Association - Friday, October 5, 2007 1-2 p.m. - UNCA Club room

**Free Review Copies Of The Book Will Be Available!**

The New Cold War:

Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union

by: Mark MacKinnon

The Kremlin is squeezing all political life out of Russia, running
elections without free media or debate, and no real candidates beyond
Putin and his associates. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union
crumbled, liberal democracy was supposed to rush in and fill the void
left on the territory of the former *Evil Empire.* While all went
according to plan in former Soviet satellites like Poland and the former
Czechoslovakia, the citizens of the ex-USSR itself saw little of the
freedom they were promised. Instead, they got variations on the same old
systems, and often the same old despots.

Putin and George W. Bush once claimed to the world that they were close
friends sharing the same principles. But in fact, they are locked in a
behind-the-scenes struggle for influence that has become central to the
second terms in office of both men. It*s a fight that threatens to
once more polarize the world between a defensive, nuclear-armed East and
an idealistic, expanding West.

The New Cold War, which will be released on Oct 4, 2007 in the United
States, is the first book to show the recent wave of democratic
revolutions (Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004 and
Kyrgyzstan in 2005) for what they are - links in the same chain of
American-orchestrated events and part of a renewed struggle for
influence between Washington and Moscow.

Who will wield influence in the old Soviet bloc? At stake is the future
course of more than a dozen countries, stretching across one-eighth of
the world*s total landmass, inhabited by some 200 million people.

Combining colour from the streets of Belgrade, Tbilisi and Kiev with
interviews with key actors - including Mikhail Saakashvili, Viktor
Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze
- the book weaves together events from half a dozen countries over a
four-year timespan.

About the Author

Mark MacKinnon is Middle East correspondent for Canada*s national
newspaper, The Globe and Mail. He has covered wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Chechnya and Lebanon.
Prior to 2005, he was the Globe and Mail's Moscow bureau chief, where
he covered the rise of Vladimir Putin and *managed democracy* in
Russia. He covered the bloody war in Chechnya, as well as the mass
hostage-takings at Beslan*s School No. 1 and Moscow*s Dubrovka
Theatre.

MacKinnon led the foreign press corps in reporting on the Western
efforts to undermine Putin and the new hard-line Kremlin as Moscow
reasserted its influence across the former Soviet Union.

The New Cold War is the culmination of that work, and includes
groundbreaking reporting on how American-funded non-governmental
organizations played key roles in organizing the Orange Revolution in
Ukraine and its predecessor, the Rose Revolution in Georgia.

The book also reveals how the real prize in the new struggle between
the Kremlin and the White House is control over the oil and gas
pipelines that crisscross the Caucasus and Central Asia.

http://www.markmackinnon.ca/home.html