The Discovery Channel yesterday said it would present a new series of documentaries that showcase Taiwan’s achievements in medicine, agriculture and industrial innovation.
The three-episode program, which was made in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is to premiere tomorrow, Arjan Hokstra, president and managing director of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, told a press conference in Taipei.
The first episode, titled Taiwan Revealed: Body Reconstructed, focuses on Taiwanese microsurgeon Wei Fu-chan (魏福全) and his team at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s plastic reconstructive surgery department.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Wei, among the world’s top plastic and reconstructive surgeons, has provided surgical treatment to peopled injured at work or those needing craniofacial reconstruction, among others.
The episode features how Wei and his team treated three people and helped restore their dignity. The patients include a Taiwanese man who lost 10 fingers in an accident and a Hong Kong woman who lost her lower jaw from a gunshot.
Another episode, Taiwan Revealed: Convenient Truths, scheduled to air on Thursday next week, showcases cutting-edge agricultural innovations in Taiwan, the channel said.
Among the featured stories are a high-tech LED lighting system that helps produce beautiful water bamboo in Nantou County, a prewarning system for fruit flies that protects guava farms in Changhua and the invention of a membrane that can recycle and reuse industrial water.
The final documentary in the series, Taiwan Revealed: Innovation Island, is to air on June 19. Featured stories include the world’s first transparent smartphone, which was introduced by a Taiwanese company, and the use of coffee grounds to produce odor-resistant fabric.
At the press conference, Hokstra said that “this year marks Discovery Channel’s 20th anniversary in the Asia-Pacific.”
As part of the channel’s efforts to tell local stories from a global perspective, the channel has worked with the ministry to produce several documentary series on Taiwan over the past 10 years, he added.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and many Taiwan-based foreign officials attended the press conference, during which video clips from the programs were shown.
Ma praised Discovery Channel’s role in helping promote Taiwan on the international stage and recommended that the channel also produce documentaries featuring outstanding Taiwanese such as Lien Jih-ching (連日清), a specialist in mosquito-borne diseases who has played an important role in combating malaria.
The Taiwan Revealed series will be aired in 36 countries and territories across the Asia-Pacific region this month and next, the channel said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan