MUMBAI: International production and distribution company Cableready has picked up the international rights to more than 100 hours of additional programming from New York Times Television. With the new acquisitions, Cableready has the exclusive international distributor of the entire Television library, with rights to nearly 300 hours of programming.

"New York Times Television is synonymous with depth and quality... to be asked to represent their entire library is a privilege and honor," says Cableready president and CEO Gary Lico.

The hour-long programs acquired by Cableready first aired on various Discovery networks and Showtime in the US, include two installments of Thomas L Friedman Reporting, featuring the noted New York Times columnist and best-selling author. The Friedman programs include: Straddling The Fence, an exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with reporting from the West Bank and Searching For The Roots of 9/11, an in-depth look at the source of Muslim rage towards the US and the West, informs an official release.

Meanwhile, Cableready has also acquired a number of current affairs specials reported by award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Terror's Children, an exploration of the post-war realities of the lives of Afghani refugee children living in Pakistan, Reinventing The Taliban?, which examines Islamic fundamentalism and its effects on the Pakistani government since last year's elections and Women Of The Holy Kingdom, which focuses on the internal debate about the role of women in an increasingly progressive Saudi Arabia.

The programmes includes 35 half-hour episodes of celebrity chef and kitchen confidential author Tony Bourdain's culinary travel series, A Cook's Tour and 29 one-hour historical and current affairs programmes.

Other documentaries in the package acquired by Cableready span subjects ranging from racial hatred to the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein, including: The Real CIA: Enemies, Secrets and Spies - an inside look at one
of the world's most secretive intelligence units, The Real Saddam, which documents how Hussein acquired, used and ultimately lost his powerful grip on Iraq and Brotherhood of Hate, which follows one family's legacy of racial
hate, handed down from one generation to the next.