Buried inside Section A of today's Austin American Statesman (in the World Digest section) is a huge international story that is effectively being buried. Its two short sentences read, "Armed men in Yemen kidnapped a former German ambassador to Washington and four members of his family and pressed the Yemeni government to release jailed members of their tribe, officials said. The Germans - Juergen Chrobog, who was Germany's ambassador from 1995 to 2001, his wife and three children - were vacationing in Yemen at the invitation of the former Yemeni ambassador to Germany." Not only was Mr. Chrobog an Ambassador to the U.S., but until the recent election in Germany, he was Germany's Deputy Foreign Minister. So, why is it that the Mainstream Media, which enthusiastically re- broadcasts all of al-Jazeera's hostage footage from Iraq, isn't trumpeting this story. Simple. Mr. Chrobog is a huge critic of America and our war effort. He is by far the most famous hostage taken by radical Islamics, but since he was not captured in Iraq and since he is an America- basher, this is therefore not a front page story. There is also tragic irony in his family's situation, because Mr. Chroboc himself was instrumental in negotiating the release of nine German hostages held by Saharan Islamics in 2003. At washingtonpost.com I read that Mr. Chrobog "personally delivered a cash ransom worth several million dollars to intermediaries in Bamako, Mali, in exchange for the hostages' safe return." The hostage-takers have clearly learned from that experience that hostage-taking is profitable, and because Mr. Chrobog and his German government chose to negotiate and pay ransom to hostage-takers, it became an almost-certainty that many more Germans would be taken hostage. Tragically for Mr. Chrobog's family, he became one of them. This story should not be buried by the MSM, but because the hostage takers' actions cannot be blamed on America or President Bush, don't expect to read much more about it. GREGG