BEIJING (Reuters) – A corrupt senior Chinese official was denounced by his 11 mistresses after some of their husbands were sentenced to death for graft, state media said on Friday.

The news comes just days after a senior provincial Communist Party official was executed for blowing up his mistress with a car bomb.

“Second wives” are common among government officials and businessmen in China and are often blamed for driving men to seek money through bribes or other abuses of power.

Pang Jiayu, 63, former deputy head of the provincial political advisory body in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, was sacked and expelled from the Communist Party for graft, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Pang did not expect that he would be brought down by his own 11 mistresses,” the official People’s Daily said in a report carried on its Web site.

Pang, who was also Party boss of Baoji city, had lured several women, mostly “pretty and young” wives of his subordinates, to be his mistresses, it said.

He helped them “make big money” by assigning them or their husbands huge government or other financial projects, it added.

In one water-diversion project in which Pang’s wife and mistresses were involved, water pipes exploded and collapsed only half a year after completion, it said.

The mistresses decided to denounce Pang to the Party after some of their husbands were sentenced to death for graft in cases related to Pang.

The Party’s discipline inspection commission said in July that they would deal with the case severely.

“What awaits Pang Jiayu is severe punishment,” the report said.

Chinese media said this week that 90 percent of the country’s most senior officials punished for “serious” graft in the last five years had kept mistresses.

Duan Yihe, former Party chief of Jinan city in the eastern province of Shandong, was executed on Wednesday for blowing up his mistress after growing tired of her constant money demands.

Hong Kong newspaper reports said former finance minister Jin Renqing was sacked last month in part for a dalliance with a local socialite. A government spokesman said he had resigned for “personal reasons”.

With a five-yearly Communist Party Congress due to open next month, and the fight against rampant corruption likely to loom large, official media these days are full of reports of venal officials meeting their comeuppance.

Top leaders have warned that the level of official corruption is so serious that it could threaten the Party’s continuing rule.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China plans to sack all officials found to have secretly “kept and supported” mistresses, in a move aimed at raising social morals, state media reported on Friday.

The step hardens up previous policy.

“It is a misunderstanding that officials who have mistresses would only be sacked when the situation is serious,” the Beijing News quoted a Ministry of Personnel spokesman as saying.

Mistresses and “second wives” are common among government officials and businessmen in China, and Chinese media have said the financial pressures of keeping mistresses have driven some officials to seek money through bribes or abuse of power.

Corrupt officials are a major cause of public outrage in China, and the country’s Communist rulers have warned that if graft is not checked it could threaten the party’s grip on power.

The ministry said it had studied the issue and found it “necessary to make a clarification and emphasis” on the punishment for officials who supported mistresses.

“The morality of government officials shown in their management or power operation… directly affects the moral level of the whole society,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.

“Therefore, officials should set up good examples, and abide by social morality rules.”

Last year, a Chinese vice admiral was jailed for life on embezzlement charges after one of his many mistresses blew the whistle on him when he refused to give in to her demand for money.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A Malaysian appeals court declared in a landmark ruling that mistresses have rights and should not be treated as mere chattel, news reports said Friday.

Judge Gopal Sri Ram overturned a previous court decision which had allowed a Singaporean tycoon, Goh Koon Suan, to reclaim a house that he had given to his mistress Heng Gek Kiau when they were lovers, The Star daily said.

Sri Ram said the decision was “ground breaking” as this was the first time a court of law has ruled that a mistress has rights.

“Do you think in this day and age we should apply principles relevant to society, which treat women as chattels? It would be a retrogressive step,” Sri Ram said according to the newspapers.

Goh, a 73-year old businessman from neighbouring Singapore met Heng, 56, almost 40 years ago and bought her a house in southern Johor state in 1980.

According to New Straits Times daily, Goh later demanded the house back after the relationship soured in 1988.

A Malaysian High Court ruled in his favour on grounds that Heng had merely held the house in trust for him.

“You squeezed her like a lemon and later cast her aside like an old shoe,” Sri Ram said after overturning the high court’s decision.

“Surely, you cannot use her like that and later claim she has no right,” he said, according to the newspapers.

Goh met Heng when she was a 16-year old babysitter from Indonesia. She and Goh have a son together.

ROME (Reuters) – A man who took his mistress to the beach made the mistake of waving to a film crew on a helicopter covering Italy’s bicycle race and was discovered by his wife.

According to media reports, the man was with his younger mistress on a beach in northern Italy when the helicopter passed overhead with a crew covering the Giro d’Italia cycling classic.

The man waved, the camera zoomed in, and the couple ended up on live television.

The brother of the man’s wife thought it was his sister he was seeing on television and called her on her mobile phone, sure that it was she on the beach with her husband.

Instead, she was at home by herself and when her husband returned with a sun tan, he had some explaining to do.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – A Malaysian court has ordered a woman to pay compensation to her lover’s ex-wife, ruling that she had caused the breakdown of their marriage.

In a ruling that drew immediate fire from women’s groups, the Court of Appeal ordered the 44-year-old mistress to pay 10,000 ringgit (1,500 pounds) in damages to the former wife of her lover, a dentist, the New Straits Times said on Friday.

The court also ordered the dentist, 61, to pay damages and maintenance to his ex-wife, a 59-year-old retired teacher. Women’s groups questioned whether the mistress should be held responsible at all for the breakdown of the marriage.

“It is obvious there is distress and a great sense of betrayal when a wife discovers her husband is unfaithful, but also of concern is what role the ex-husband played as he is primarily responsible for breach of contract,” Women’s Aid Organisation head Ivy Josiah told the New Straits Times.

Under a 30-year-old law, a court can order a third-party to pay compensation if it finds a marriage has broken down due to an adulterous affair, but such rulings have been rare.