JEDDAH — The Satellite and Cable Channel, The Documentary Channel premieres The Gift of Separate Lives on Aug. 11, 2008 at 10:05-11:00 p.m. EDT (6.00 p.m. Kingdom time). The program will then air throughout the month of August.

The Gift of Separate Lives is the story of Conjoined Twins Fatima and Zahra and the fight to save and separate them. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah offered his personal assistance to the distraught mother in Baghdad, and following 11 months of care and planning, and an 18 and a half hour surgery, a Saudi surgical team successfully separated Fatima and Zahra in December 2006.

The Gift of Separate Lives chronicles this incredible story from its earliest days in Baghdad's Sadr City to their 11 months of hospital care to readying them for surgery. The production team received "behind-the-scenes" access to the twins and hospital staff in the making of this documentary that also focuses on the hospital's 17-year history of separating conjoined twins.

Today 1 in every 14,000 births in Asia and Africa are conjoined, compared to 1 in 50,000 in the West. This program examines this disparity in the number of conjoined twins and the research now taking place to prevent such occurrences.

Produced in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Asia, and Europe, The Gift of Separate Lives follows the cases of current and former patients. To date, the program has performed 14 successful separation procedures on children from around the world. The successes achieved by the Saudi surgeons have made it one of the top surgical teams in the world for this type of surgery.

Produced by the EMMY award winning production teams of Producers International Media Inc., and Artas Productions of Amman, Jordan. The Gift of Separate Lives is written and narrated by the award winning

British journalist Colin Baker.