fifa set to vote on blatter's leadership in the greatest corruption scandal in the history of world futbol. ♪ hello, i'm rochelle and you are watching al jazeera and also on the program, nigeria swears in a new president, the first peaceful transfer of power between rival parties in the nation's history. thailand says the surge of refugees reached an alarming level and tells myanmar to consider the treatment of rohingya. and captured in afghanistan, at

15 we meet the man who is trying to rebuild his life after more than a decade in guantanamo. ♪ fifa set to vote for a new president blatter's leadership of world futbol has been plunged in crisis by arrest of seven top officials on bribery charges and facing a serious challenge for the top job from prince ali of jordan and blatter says the organization is now at a turning point and he needs help to restore fifa's reputation. >> translator: the events of wednesday have unleashed a storm and it was even questioned at one point in time whether this congress would tainting place or the agenda might be changed. today i'm appealing for unity and team spirit to move forward today and it may not be easy but it's for this reason we are here

together today to tackle the problems that have been created. we are here to solve them. >> reporter: and let's go live to our andy richardson at fifa headquarters at zurich and the vote is close and 2 1/2 hours away and even with all of the controversy surrounding blatter he still has some truly staunch support and tell us about that. >> reporter: we've already heard at length from blatter today ahead of the congress and heard a little of what he had to say and reiterated his argument he could not be held responsible for actions of individuals working at fifa and said associations and countries that had to take responsibility over what the members are up to, whether or not that is an argument people were buying outside of that congress i don't know but within it he is preaching to the converted. obviously yesterday europe's governing body urged blatter to

resign and officially won't be backing him but talking to delegates from outside of europe arriving at the voting hall they largely were pro-blatter. >> will he win? >> yes. >> can't hear you, say that again. >> africa. >> are you supporting mr. blatter today? >> definitely. >> mr. blatter will window you think? >> supporting blatter. >> he is the best president. >> blatter. >> the whole of africa wants to vote for blatter. >> he has a lot of chance to win. >> how many votes from your confederation do you think you will get, all of them? >> i'm not sure, i can tell you. >> but you think he is going to win, what, in the first round? there are 209 member associations, the vote will take place in about 2-3 hours time

depending how the agenda goes. individual countries will come forward with a piece of paper and drop it in a ballot box old school and he or the rival of jordan saying in the first round of voting you need 140 votes, two third majority to win and if you don't get that it's simple majority of 105 in the second round of votes and who gets that and expect it to be blatter they will be fifa president for another four years. >> andy if you could stand by for a moment the future of blatter is not the only important issue under discussion atrophy atrophy fifa and they briefly interrupted the congress. and suspend fifa on restrictions of movement of palestinian prayers and let's go back to

andy at fifa headquarters and tell us when the vote is expected to come out and when is it likely to play out. >> the bubbles of workings with fifa and demonstrators getting inside the congress and demonstrations outside the hall on going and have been all week. that table that has been motioned by the palestinian fa comes up just before the presidential votes and won't be for a couple of hours and asking for the suspension of israel from world futbol and have a number of complaints around security forces limiting movement of players between gaza and the west bank and filmed with the national team and trying to get them together with a training session and it's difficult and you have players based in gaza and occupied west bank and trying to get the three parties together at any one

point is because of the travel restrictions and it's one of the complaints that palestine has. if it does go to a vote they need 75% majority to have israel suspended and blatter talking at the start of congress saying the two countries could still resolve this with a handshake. >> reporter: andy, a busy agenda today for fifa and thank you very much. saudi arabia at least four people have been killed in an explosion near a mosque. according to them it is a car bomb exploded in the eastern city and the blast is a week after a suicide bomber killed at least seven in the province. thailand says the surge of refugees in southeast asia reached alarming level and myanmar needs to reconsider its treatment of rohingya and myanmar government says it should not be singled out, a regional conference is in the high capitol bangkok to discuss the crisis and monica joins us

live from bangkok to tell us more about that meeting. so any progress being made veronica? >> reporter: we have been waiting for the last hour for the final statement to be released by the ministry of foreign affairs here in thailand. apparently the statement is to reflect faithfully how the discussion has gone inside the room where participants from 17 key nations involve this movement as they call it in the indian ocean as well as observers from various u.n. agencies have been talking. but what we understand is they have been delayed because of a discussion over what they are calling the root causes of this unprecedented number of people that are leaving the area. some are bengoli migrants and

some are an ethnic group known as rohingya who are muslim and persecuted to the extent that they have been leaving in their tens of thousands for the last few years but what has happened this year that there has been so much attention is that thailand and malaysia cracked down on human trafficking in response to international criticism and tie land took it upon themselves to hold this conference but the difficulties that you are seeing, the delays and the final statement are a reflection of the difficulty in this culture of face saving interference of talking about difficult problems and means they remain the problems linger so it's difficult problems and that means that they remain, the problems linger so it's going to be very interesting to see what they have to say about the root causes when myanmar refuses to recognize the rohingya muslims being from their country and say

they are all bengoli migrants and in the last few minutes we heard the myanmar navy and myanmar information found 727 people in a boat in the delta area and they stay they are all bengolis and not rohingya because they refuse to recognize that destination. >> understood and veronica reporting live from bangkok and thank you. the trade-in people affected the entire region our correspondent visited one village in bangladesh that was a safe heaven for traffickers until resent police crack down. >> reporter: from the mountains of myanmar it's a short hop across the river to the boats of bangladesh and for years now tens of thousands of rohingya crossing the border from myanmar and setting sale for malaysia. not any more. with world attention on boats

packed with migrants off the coast of malaysia and tie land the bangladesh government acted to try to put an end to people smuggling. three king pens were shot dead earlier this month, one of them was this man and we went to visit his home. it's inside a large fenced compound surrounded by homes of its associates and his third wife says she has six young children. his first wife is paralyzed and cannot speak and unlike most homes, his house is made of brick and the walls are painted but his families and associates say he was a poor man who wasn't involved in anything illegal. >> translator: officers came and dragged my husband from our house and shot him, my husband didn't do anything wrong. he was just a poor hardworking man. >> reporter: the police say the alleged traffickers were killed when they accidentally shot themselves while trying to escape a gun fight with

officers. this has had a dramatic effect on the community and villagers say half of the men here worked in the trafficking business many are now in hiding. >> translator: the whole society changed. ordinary people couldn't afford fish in the market any more because the traffickers has so much more money to spend and they would intimidate everyone. >> every section of society here became involved in trafficking, for example this here is where the road to shops break down and you need to get off your vehicle, walk over there which will then take you to the village and we are told by local journalists that these were involved in transporting the would-be migrants to the boats. the drivers deny that is the case. with increased vigilance by security forces trafficking here appears to have come to a halt that may not remain the case once the spotlight has moved on.

al jazeera, bangladesh. live pictures for you here nigeria's new president sworn in just a short time ago and says his country will play a leadership role in the region and muhammadu buhari has been speaking after being sworn in the capitol abuja and inauguration is the first peaceful transfer of power in history and one thing he already said to the assembled crowd is they cannot claire victory over boko haram until the missing school girls have been found and yvonne is there at abuja at the ceremony and joins us live and it certainly seems like an exciting event and time for nigeria, yvonne. >> reporter: that's right, rochelle momentous occasion and the first peaceful transfer of power from one democratic leader to another and the first time in the country's history. just a few seconds ago the new

president muhammadu buhari began speaking giving his inaugural speech addressing dignitaries across africa who are here and the u.s. secretary of state and thanked god and nigerians for showing the world they could conduct a free fair and peaceful election. he said the world had come to expect the worst from nigerians but surprised the world by conducting that free and fair poll in march. he said that the challenges ahead are absolutely enormous for the country and the country is virtually broke given the falling prices of oil and corruption is pervasive and unemployment is a huge issue and of course the constant power shortages that the country experiences and insecurity in the northeast caused by boko haram and when he was giving his inaugural speech he said it made no sense for command and control

center that the army command and control center on fighting boko haram and no sense to be located in abuja and he was going to relocate the command center to the northeast to the capitol of borno state the center of the crisis and insurgency we have seen in six years and public officials would declare assets and explain how they have the money they have and own the properties they have overseas in some cases. he said unemployment was a huge issue with nigerian university turning out a million graduates every year and no jobs for them. on monday morning these are the issues he is going to start to tackling. there has been a huge fuel crisis here which made this event even difficult to hold and powered by generators by private companies because there is no constant power supply here. he said that will be number one on the issue to deal with next week. that is scandal two, the fuel

scarcity scandal linked to corruption in the old sector. at this moment in time he has gone back to his seat the ceremony is going on and we expect other dignatoryitaries here to witness what is a momentum occasion in nigeria's political history. >> indeed it is live for us in from abuja and thank you. much more to come on al jazeera. i'm in miami and looking at plans to increase access to the internet in an attempt to close the so called digital divide. ♪

top stories now on al jazeera. fifa president blatter told members they must help fix futbol's governing body as the corruption crisis deepens and fifa 209 members are there to vote for a new leader with a challenge of ali from jordan. thousands of migrants are stranded at sea in southeast asia and many are thought to be rohingya muslims fleeing persecution in western myanmar and delegates gathered in bangkok for talks of the crisis and saying myanmar is being singled out. nigerian president will be who they expect and muhammadu buhari has been speaking after being sworn in at a ceremony you are seeing right there in the capitol. rebels from syria's al-qaeda al-nusra front captured the last government held town in idlib province and area borders turkey

and provides access to president al-assad's coast and there was heavy shelling and rocket fire before it was stolen by rebel fighters and vehicles were seen pulling out. u.n. security council briefed about the continuing barrel bomb attacks in syria with some of them allegedly containing chlorine gas and ambassador to u.n. said she has no doubt that assad regime is responsible and made it clear the u.s. position of setting up a no fly zone has not changed. >> you have to assess whether going to war with asaid regime will bring results you seek. it's an extremely complicated enterprise and it's one ultimately that if the assad regime test it would entail shooting its planes out of the sky and sometimes people refer to the no fly zone as if it's a

soft side option we turn a blind eye to but it's a complicated enterprise. >> reporter: you can see the interview, the entire thing on talk to al jazeera on 4:30 gmt on saturday. iraq army continuing efforts to retake take western province and forces loyal toll the army is pushed back by a series of suicide attacks resulting in heavy losses and explains why ramadi is a battleground in this count conflict. >> reporter: ramadi the scene was frighteningly reminicent and the flags are like long ago. >> feeds on the notion that i.s.i.s. is on the march and the march is inevitable and it's a sunni majority city in a sunni majority province and it's significant because it's one

step closer to baghdad. >> reporter: for the capitol of anbar province this type of threat is nothing new. between 2003-2007 the strategic city is said to have become a base for foreign fighters who wanted to exploito exploit sunni muslim anger for the shia led government until tribes supported by the u.s. turned their weapons on irsur gents and drove them out and iraqi security forces were being driven out and with the fall of ramadi i.s.i.l. controls a vital and seemingly open supply route for fighters and weapons and expands from strongholds like raka and syria and mosul and iraq the 130 kilometers to baghdad. analysts say it's no surprise iraqi army soldiers were ill equipped to fight and point to the policy of debath following

hussein as one of the reasons. >> a purge of officer core when the united states was occupying occupying and subsequent surges by the core and a lot of the best talent over the last decade or so has been pushed out of the armed service and in the private sector and they have gone and joined i.s.i.s. >> reporter: experts say repression of sunni decent between 2011-2013 was for many a breaking point. >> all the calls for unified government goes to the ambar demonstration two years ago when the ambar asked for their rights and their calls to be part of the unified government. >> reporter: during that time agreed sunnis accused prime minister malaki of depriving and

marginalizing them because of his sectarian policies. protesters were killed as government forces fired at them. since then anger and animosity has only grown. now the situation is even worse. as the united states and iraq engage in a war of words about who is to blame for failing to stop i.s.i.l. both wage war on the streets against their common enemy, one still very much on the march. mohamed, al jazeera. to the war in yemen now with heavy fighting in the south and pro-government forces have taken control of a road linking several cities in several areas. meanwhile in the port city of aiden houthi rebels shelled several neighbors on thursday about 40 and allies were killed in fighting in aiden in air strikes on sanaa in the north. the youngest person ever to be

held at a military prison at guantanamo bay talking about experiences and hopes for the future and alleged to have thrown a grenade and he was interviewed in canada and we have a special report. >> reporter: for many years this photo of 15-year-old canadian omar was all the world knew about the youngest prisoner held at the u.s. facility at guantanamo and he is 28 years old, out of guantanamo and out of house arrest in canada and moving beyond what he says was ten traumatic years in american military custody. >> we were drug humiliated water boarded, dogs sleep deprivation, it's the whole book. >> reporter: the first time cotter has spoken publically about his time in detention and

had been under a gag order until a canadian judge ordered him released on bail earlier this month and cotter is trying to answer questions he imagines people have about his experience such as whether he is angry about what happened to him and why he was captured in the first place. >> the first few years in guantanamo i was all over the place emotionally and ideally and i was a message being around people i would start acting and talking left them and do everything they are doing and they would move me to a different place and i would just adapt to the new neighborhood. >> reporter: cotter also talks about how he ended up at guantanamo in 20002 and if he threw a grenade that killed a u.s. medic on a house he was living in afghanistan. under orders from his father cotter was working as a translator for al-qaeda

operatives. >> nobody claims to have seen me throw the grenade and this soldier you know testified that i was under the debris and it couldn't have been me so i always hope that you know maybe my memories were not true. >> reporter: cotter is now waging several legal battles and canadian government considers him a terrorist and wants him back in prison and cotter is suing the u.s. government to clear his name and the canadian government for allowing him to be tortured as a child. what ever the outcome of these cases cotter says he is focused on the present. >> for the longest time all i would tell anybody's that i wish that i could just get out of prison and just be the next joe the street who nobody knows and we can give the thought to. >> reporter: roslyn jordan al jazeera, washington. ten people in south korea are confirmed having middle east

respiratory virus known as mers and says the virus was transmitted by a traveler and no sustained human to human spread and there is no money cure for mers. chinese authorities destroyed nearly 600 tons of confiscated ivory and china is the world's largest importer of smuggled tusks and there is still a serious problem and illegal trade threatens elephant populations across africa. united states wants to give millions of low income families free access to the internet to close the so called digital divide and it's a recognition that internet access is now a fundamental right and andy gallagher reports from miami. >> reporter: public libraries used to be all about books but in the digital age it's access to the internet that draws people in. this library in miami has free browsing to education and music

programs. >> pretty cool, huh. >> reporter: so parents can get their kids online and provides a vital service. >> a really nice library and we enjoy coming and my son enjoys coming as well. announcer: it's that kind of service that the u.s. government wants to get into people's homes and the idea is to modify a program called lifeline that helps poor families pay their phone bills and also get them online. when people talk about the digital divide they talk about the difference of being information rich and information poor and the figures speak for themselves according to the u.s. census bureau findings 5 million households in the u.s. are without broadband and disproportionately tend to be black or hispanic families. industry experts say if the u.s. wants to remain competitive it needs to give everyone access to the web. >> if you are not connected you run the risk of being marginalized and almost a second-class citizen, not only are you left out of the

competitive opportunities, the job opportunities, but your children in particular are behind other children of their age. >> reporter: but critics say the program is also wasteful expensive and ultimately could harm the people it hopes to help. >> really the program is full of waste, fraud and abuse and unless we return to making sure that people have skin in the game that is just going to continue and what that means is really there will be higher broadband taxes for everybody else including people who are not quite poor enough to get the subsidy and that there will be less subsidies for those that really need it. >> reporter: likely the new plan which will be voted on in june will cause fierce debate and few doubt access to the internet is increasingly essential. andy gallagher, al jazeera, miami, florida. a volcano erupted on a remote japanese island and 100 ordered to evacuate and exploded on friday morning sending thick

black smoke high in the air and japanese prime minister has instructed local authorities to do everything possible to ensure the islanders' safety and some airlines have been forced to divert flights as well and a reminder you can get updates throughout the day on our website, al jazeera. so. >> more severe weather moving into texas threatening communities. the state is preparing for the worst. >> former house speaker hastert codes faces accusations. seth