Pete Shmigel

A thousand days of the Ukraine war

20 November 2024 1:20 am

On its 1,000th day, the debate about the war on Ukraine is focused on the ascendancy of Donald J. Trump…

Ukraine: rebuilding lives and minds

12 November 2024 8:09 am

In wartime situations, it’s one thing to rebuild damaged buildings – it’s another thing to rebuild a damaged society’s well-being.…

Ukraine’s mental health system strives under strain of ‘Continuous Traumatic Stress Disorder’

26 September 2024 1:19 am

Mental health in Ukraine is trending upwards one year after a ground-breaking summit led by First Lady Olena Zelenska, according…

The field of Mars

15 September 2024 8:28 pm

In this city of Lviv, ancient churches with crumbling walled ramparts sit beside trendy bars with beautiful hipsters in carefully…

Russia’s national disease can be cured by defeat

7 August 2024 1:40 pm

From a psychological perspective, Russia may have collective paranoid schizophrenia and needs to be defeated for catharsis

Xi keeps Russia’s war alive

14 July 2024 2:21 am

With one phone call, the war against Ukraine could be ended and the missiles stopped from hitting children’s hospitals. And,…

Crossing

5 May 2024 12:43 am

The announcer said that the train – crowded with women and their children – was nearing the last station before…

Fencing

23 March 2024 2:30 am

Persistent thumping and early morning glare woke Anton. As he opened his eyes, through a torn and flimsy curtain, he…

The April Fools’ Day joke that wasn’t a joke

16 April 2023 7:00 am

In what some experts are calling ‘the lowest point in the history of the United Nations’, the Russian Federation assumed the…

Deadly Western trends

26 January 2023 12:00 pm

Australia is about as far away from the war on Ukraine as one can get, but this week it showed…

The centre-right should get on their bikes

27 October 2022 2:37 pm

The bicycle is the machine that best represents conservative and libertarian worldviews, and we cannot let our bikes be co-opted…

Theatre of the absurd

6 September 2022 1:30 pm

While Putin’s Russian Federation is one of the world’s most corrupt and cruel regimes, it quizzically continues to be obsessed…

Amnesty International’s shame

13 August 2022 9:00 am

While writer Myroslav Marynovych was a political prisoner of the USSR from 1977-87, he received letters from supporters who were…

Multiculturalism is in, and that’s a good thing

2 July 2022 7:00 am

According to the latest Census results, for the first time, more than half of Australians (51.2 per cent) are now…

Ukraine’s war? There’s an app for that

18 June 2022 9:00 am

Technology and innovation fighting brutal hardware and aggression

Tough choices make strong people

30 May 2022 11:00 am

In Australia, our choices can often be slippery. In Ukraine, choices are as hard and sharp as the spiky steel…

To ‘crush and colonise’

13 May 2022 2:00 pm

The Russians may well love their children too, but many of their views about their war on Ukraine span a…

Propaganda unleashed

29 April 2022 12:00 pm

Putin’s right-hand man and Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, has publicly described propaganda and disinformation as weapons of equal standing in…

From the ground in Ukraine: aid and terror

4 April 2022 4:00 am

It is a strange thing to travel toward a war zone. As one drives in the direction of Ukraine, all…

Morrison must make a choice about Ukraine

28 February 2022 9:00 am

On Sunday morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison attended church as he very often does. Except yesterday, it was at a…

Letter from New York – where empathy is exhausted

9 February 2022 12:00 pm

This week, in one carriage of the New York City subway, there were seven homeless people taking shelter on an…

The Great Resignation is coming to Australia

17 January 2022 4:00 am

The Great Resignation looks to soon arrive in Australia and, if we’re not careful, it may also bring with it…

Woke work is unhappy work

3 December 2021 9:00 am

The more that we talk about work/life balance and diverse and inclusive workplaces, the unhappier we seem to be. Over…

Glasgow and the greenhouse gap

4 November 2021 4:00 am

As we watch the bureaucratic minions and the behemothic motorcades circulating in Glasgow, the ‘Greenhouse Gap’ appears to be growing.   On one side of…

Tough love: why we risk being a really miserable lot

6 October 2021 4:00 am

A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…