Catalog 2009

Fashion dictates that our jeans should look as battered and worn out as possible, before we’ve even tried them on. The scruffier they look the better, and the higher the price tag. Up to 300 euros. Back in the day, people simply stuck their new jeans on the drive way and ran them over a few times to get that aged effect, but modern methods are a lot more sophisticated. All the leading brands...

On the occasion of the UN Climate summit, PREMIERES LIGNES presents "Smoked Out…", a documentary by Paul Moreira on the US oil lobby and Climate Change deniers. The reporter looks at this political storm and shows how the oil, coal and automobile industries have managed to sneak influent agents into the very heart of the American administration. Remember, the United States alone is responsible...

Few are the restaurants in France that really played the game and reduced their VAT from 19.6% to 5.5% effective July 1st, 2009.In an agreement signed in March, restaurant owners pledged to reduce prices of at least seven products on their menus, to raise the salaries of their employees and to create, within two years, 40,000 jobs. It was part of the deal with the French state, since the...

Many blame the risky actions and greedy behaviour of bankers for causing the financial crisis. But while these actions pushed the world into recession and led to the collapse or nationalisation of leading banks, it appears to be business as usual for bankers. Following the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, there will be no global attempt to limit the huge bonuses bankers receive. Nothing to prevent a...

No need for either compensation or a redundancy package. The departure is discreet, almost invisible. Yet, the number of those with insecure jobs is steadily increasing. One employee in five in France makes up this group. Journalist Paul Moreira spent time with some of these workers. Through testimonies and experts' analyses, he reminds us of this silent and forgotten minority. Sentimental...

A new form of direct action often results from the trade unions failure to guide and represent this movement. Consequently, some bureaucrats refuse the privatisation of public services. Postal workers do not want to become marketing and sales people. Managers at the electric utility company power back impoverished households. Judges have cases pending to avoid automatic minimum sentencing....

What happened to the $18 billion invested by the international community to help rebuild Afghanistan, develop schools and hospitals and to eradicate the opium trade? In 2009 journalist Paul Moreira visited Kabul to find out. Remarkably, he discovers that, eight years after the fall of the Talibans, no schools had been built and the hospital is falling apart. In the district of Shirpour, the poor...