The main sites of both Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com) and Windows Live Mail (http://www.live.com) of Microsoft have been widely inaccessible from mainland China as of May 1, 2006. Access to the sites has yet to be restored."

http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=12663&slug=HOTMAIL

Do Chinese censorship efforts expand their grip lately?

no-- something else is going on..

all entry and exit points are being drawin into a closed loop cycle..!!

i guess its working now ... isnt it ?

I'm not in cn- soo I cant confirm