SUSPECT IN 2008 MUMBAI ATTACKS IS HELD IN PAKISTAN ON NEW CHARGE

[Mr. Lakhvi was first granted bail on Dec. 18 after a judge declared that there were insufficient grounds to continue his detention in the Mumbai case. But the government immediately ordered a 30-day extension of his detention. His lawyer objected to the move, and a judge of the Islamabad High Court accepted that plea on Monday and ordered his release.]

By Salman Masood

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a senior commander with the militant group 

Lashkar-e-Taiba, escorted by police officials after his court appearance

 in Islamabad on Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Islamabad police on Tuesday rearrested a militant commander accused of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, just a day after a high court said he could post bail in that case.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a senior commander with the militant groupLashkar-e-Taiba, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of kidnapping a man in a new case that was opened at an Islamabad police station on Monday night.

Mr. Lakhvi had been scheduled to be released on Tuesday from a maximum-security prison in Adiala, on the outskirts of Rawalpindi.

Police officials said a complaint was lodged against Mr. Lakhvi for kidnapping the man after allegedly luring him to wage jihad.

There was no immediate explanation from officials as to why the complaint was registered only this week. A civil court judge on Tuesday morning allowed the Islamabad police to detain Mr. Lakhvi for two more days to investigate the allegations.

Mr. Lakhvi was presented before the judge in an Islamabad district court under strict security. Police officers and paramilitary troops were present in large numbers outside the court compound during the hearing.

Raja Rizwan Abbasi, the lawyer for Mr. Lakhvi, denounced the new case and said the kidnapping charge was “fabricated and fake.”

Mr. Lakhvi was first granted bail on Dec. 18 after a judge declared that there were insufficient grounds to continue his detention in the Mumbai case. But the government immediately ordered a 30-day extension of his detention. His lawyer objected to the move, and a judge of the Islamabad High Court accepted that plea on Monday and ordered his release.

The latest twist demonstrated the pressure the Pakistani government is under to keep Mr. Lakhvi behind bars because of diplomatic protests by India and concerns expressed by the United States.

Mr. Lakhvi is among seven people who are standing trial over accusations that they were involved in the Mumbai attacks, which deeply strained relations between India and Pakistan. More than 160 people were killed in the coordinated attacks.

The trial here has been going on since 2009, and the Indian government has protested the slow pace of the prosecution. Pakistani officials have responded by saying that the evidence offered by India has been weak and insufficient.

@ The New York Times

CHINESE INTERNET USERS 'NEED TO ACCEPT THE REALITY OF GMAIL BEING SUSPENDED'

[Google is to blame for the shutdown of its popular email system, says influential Chinese state newspaper, adding that the company should have obeyed the law]

By Robert Foyle Hunwick, Beijing

Has Google's Gmail had its day in China? 

Photo: Getty Images

Gmail, the world's most popular email service, remained largely offline in China on Tuesday as an influential state newspaper suggested that it may never return.

Access to Gmail through the internet has been blocked since the 25th anniversary of the quelling of the Tiananmen Square protests in June.

However, users have been able to access their emails through their mobile phones and through third-party programs like Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail.

Those workarounds now also appear to have been shut down, although some users were reporting they could reach their email on Tuesday.

Google said there is "nothing wrong on our end" with its service while GreatFire.org, which monitors China's internet censorship, said that the authorities had begun to shut down Gmail's ability to contact third party programs on December 26.

“If the China side indeed blocked Gmail, the decision must have been prompted by newly emerged security reasons,” said the nationalistic Global Times newspaper in an editorial.

“If that is the case, Gmail users need to accept the reality of Gmail being suspended in China.

China has steadily increased pressure on Google since the company pulled its servers from the mainland in 2010 and said it would no longer comply with Chinese censorship regulations.

This year, Google Maps, Google Docs and Gmail have all been blocked. In November, a man who tried to sue China Unicom, a major internet provider, for restricting his access to Google was arrested and charged with "picking quarrels". He is currently in detention in the southern city of Shenzhen.]

Gmail's latest problems prompted a petition to the White House, complaining that it is "not acceptable for the Chinese people to be isolated from the world".

Others compared China's web to an "intranet" and saying that the country was closing itself off to the world. The complaints may have had some success: there were users who reported they could access Gmail on Tuesday.

Officials may have decided that the complete strangulation of email services from the world’s largest provider may be a step too far even for them, or the economic costs too high. Or the breakdown could have been one of the Great Firewall’s occasional glitches, albeit one last much longer than previous outages.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was “not aware” of the blocking of the service when asked about the issue at a regular press conference Monday.

“I would like to stress that China always welcomes and supports foreign investors’ legal business operations in China,” she said.

@ The Telegraph