ZIMBABWE’S opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has suspended eight top officials, including four lawmakers, from party positions amid internal squabbles. Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary general, said the eight, who include Learnmore Jongwe, the party’s chief representative, and Tapiwa Mashakada, shadow finance minister, were relieved of their duties pending a probe into the in-fighting. They will remain ordinary party members while investigations are under way into factional clashes last month. In a late-night attack on 27 September, a house and cars belonging to one of the suspended parliamentarians, Job Sikhala, were stoned and his two-week-old daughter was injured. The MP alleged that the assailants were fellow MDC members. – Irin