Pakistan PM gets 2 more weeks over Zardari graft cases

Pakistan's Supreme Court has given PM Raja Pervez Ashraf another two weeks to pursue corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The court said earlier that the PM had until 25 July to ask the Swiss authorities to reopen previous cases, BBC news reported. In June the court disqualified Yousuf Raza Gilani as PM after convicting him of contempt for failing to pursue corruption cases against Mr Zardari. He had argued that the president had immunity from prosecution. On Wednesday Judge Asif Saeed Khosa adjourned the case against Mr Ashraf until 8 August after the attorney general, representing the government, asked for more time to make "serious and genuine efforts" to resolve the impasse with the judiciary. "We trust that it is not impossible to bridge the gap between stated positions of the two institutions," the judge said. On Tuesday, the attorney general urged the court to withdraw its orders, calling them "un-implementable" and contrary to the constitution. The corruption charges against Mr Zardari date back to the 1990s when his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, was prime minister. They were accused of using Swiss bank accounts to launder bribe money.