LONDON: Former International Cricket Council (ICC) president David Morgan has been appointed the next president of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the owners of London´s Lord´s Cricket Ground, it was announced Wednesday.

Morgan, who also served as a chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), will take over on October 1 after being nominated by current MCC president Mike Gatting.

"David Morgan has been and remains one of the most influential voices in the world game, and I´m sure he will do an excellent job in leading MCC through a very important time in its history," said Gatting.

"He is ambitious, creative and efficient and will be a fantastic leader for this wonderful club.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as MCC president so far, and I am looking forward to seeing the club through the Lord´s (ground) bicentenary celebrations in my final few months," former England captain Gatting added."David is the ideal person to succeed me and I´m delighted he accepted my invitation."

Morgan, is currently the president of Welsh county Glamorgan, where he made his name as a cricket administrator, and will continue in that post alongside his MCC duties.

Morgan´s appointment came during MCC´s annual general meeting on Wednesday when Gatting confirmed that will be no redevelopment of the Nursery End until work at the Pavilion End of the ground is complete.

As part of the Lord´s Masterplan, MCC have planning permission for the redevelopment of the Warner Stand with work scheduled to commence, subject to members´ approval, in September 2015.(AFP)

LAHORE: Newly appointed head coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Waqar Younis said that he has been appointed coach through the system and did not commit any mistake.

He said that if anybody criticizes him he is ready to face it.

The former fast bowler said that he wants to do something for the team with an open heart.

Waqar said that he has no complaint against any player and has learnt from mistakes of his past.

He said that he had given suggestions to the Pakistan Cricket Board regarding the appointment of support staff.

The head coach said that Pakistan team would be benefited by playing cricket series against Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia before the World Cup 2015.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, Javed Hashmi on Thursday telephoned Geo News senior anchorperson Hamid Mir and inquired about his health.

In a telephonic conversation, Javed Hashmi said he was against the ban on Geo, adding if anyone has complaints about Geo he should move the court.

Hashmi told Hamid Mir during their telephone conversation: “Mir! the attack on you is an assault on democracy. ”He further said: “I always fight for the democracy, and you also do so.”

TOKYO: A Japanese man suspected of possessing guns made with a 3-D printer has been arrested, reports said Thursday, in what was said to be the country´s first such detention.

Officers who raided the home of Yoshitomo Imura, a 27-year-old college employee, confiscated five weapons, two of which had the potential to fire lethal bullets, broadcaster NHK said.

They also recovered a 3-D printer from the home in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, but did not find any ammunition for the guns, Jiji Press reported.

It is the first time Japan´s firearm control law has been applied to the possession of guns produced by 3-D printers, Jiji reported.

The police investigation began after the suspect allegedly posted video footage on the Internet showing him shooting the guns, the Mainichi Shimbun said on its website.

Officers suspect that he downloaded blueprints for making the guns with 3-D printers from websites hosted overseas, the newspaper said.

The daily said the suspect largely admitted the allegations, saying: "It is true that I made them, but I did not think it was illegal."

The police refused to confirm the reports, although broadcasters showed footage of Imura being taken in for questioning.

The rapid development of 3-D printing technology, which allows relatively cheap machines to construct complex physical objects by building up layers of polymer, has proved a challenge for legislators around the world.

Weapons assembled from parts produced by the printers are not detectable with regular security equipment, like that found at airports, leading to fears that they may be used in hijackings.

The debate about home-made guns took off last year in the United States when a Texas-based group, Defense Distributed, posted blueprints for a fully functional, 3-D-printed firearm, a single-shot pistol made almost entirely out of hard polymer plastic.

In December the US Congress renewed a ban on guns that contain no metal.

While Japanese police are armed, Japan has very strict firearms control laws and few people possess guns or have ever come into contact with them. (AFP)

MULTAN: JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has strongly criticized Imran Khan, saying that Khan had never carried out any serious work in his life.

Speaking to media at Jamia Qasim-ul-Uloom Multan here Wednesday, Fazl said Imran Khan is a needless element and he had been wasting time from the very beginning.

JUI-F leader further said poll rigging was carried out across the country, adding the people who came into power via rigging were crying about it.

Commenting on peace talks, Fazl said he was not part of Taliban-government dialogues, however, he wanted the process to succeed and bring peace in the country.

Fazl added that the government had not adopted a serious path for success of dialogue process.

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has announced four more deaths from the MERS coronavirus and 18 new infections, as it battles to contain the mystery disease which has now killed 121 people in the kingdom.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) after a five-day mission to Jeddah pinpointed breaches in its "recommended infection prevention and control measures" as being partly responsible for an increase in infections in the Red Sea city.

The disease, which first appeared in the kingdom in September 2012, has now infected a total number 449 Saudis, accounting for the bulk of cases registered across the globe.

Two of the latest deaths reported late on Wednesday -- of a 65-year-old woman suffering from several illnesses and a 45-year-old woman -- occurred in the capital Riyadh. Both died on Tuesday.

In Jeddah, the commercial capital, a 70-year-old woman died on Monday and a 60-year-old man died on Tuesday, the health authorities said.

Among the 18 people newly infected is a 10-year-old boy who was taken to a government hospital in Jeddah following an accident on April 29. After he was discharged from the hospital on May 2, MERS symptoms began to appear and he was rushed to intensive care.

Saudi Arabia´s acting health minister Adel Fakieh announced Tuesday the sacking of the head of Jeddah´s King Fahd Hospital where a spike in MERS infections among medical staff sparked panic among the public. The WHO said the recent increase in numbers of infections does not suggest a "significant change in the transmissibility of the virus".

"The majority of human-to-human infections occurred in health care facilities," it said, adding that "one quarter of all cases have been health care workers". The team urged health care workers to improve their "knowledge and attitudes" about the disease.

MERS is considered a deadlier but less-transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of whom died.

There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for MERS, a disease with a mortality rate of more than 40 percent that experts are still struggling to understand.

Some researchers think it may originate in camels.

Fakieh on Wednesday announced an awareness campaign to help stop the disease´s spread, urging people not only to follow strict measures of hygiene, but specifically to avoid sick camels and refrain from eating raw camel meat or drinking unboiled camel milk. (AFP)