ZURICH — Gianni Infantino is the new president of soccer's corruption-scarred world governing body, winning election after promising national leaders of the sport that he would share the wealth from FIFA's USD$5 billion World Cup revenues.

Infantino was chosen on the second-ballot Friday to fill the unexpired term of longtime FIFA leader Sepp Blatter, who was forced out by the pressure of U.S. and Swiss investigations of bribery and corruption that emerged two days before the previous vote in May 2015.

The stunning outcome seemed to catch the 45-year-old Infantino off-guard. He had to compose himself before starting his acceptance speech and saluted voters by patting his heart with his right hand.

"We will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA. And everyone in the world will applaud us," said Infantino, who only became a candidate when a case of financial wrongdoing removed his own boss, Michel Platini, at Europe's soccer body UEFA.

"I am convinced a new era is starting," said the Swiss-born former lawyer. Blatter headed FIFA for more than 17 years.

Infantino pledged to meet quickly with World Cup broadcasters and sponsors, saying they "they need to regain trust and confidence in football and in FIFA."

There were only four candidates on the ballot after Tokyo Sexwale withdrew during his campaign speech to voters. The four were Infantino, UEFA's general secretary; Sheikh Salman of Bahrain, the Asian confederation president; Prince Ali of Jordan; and Jerome Champagne of France.

Infantino, who had waged a globe-trotting campaign in the four months leading up to the election, gave an impressive 15-minute speech only 20 minutes before the first-round vote. The Swiss-Italian spoke in several languages without notes and portrayed himself as a leader for the world, not just Europe's wealthy confederation.

His campaign promised to spread the World Cup largesse to more federations, including additional guaranteed funds. He also pledged to expand the World Cup from a 32-team tournament to 40 teams, and give more opportunities to countries to stage the World Cup with multinational regional hosting.

"The money of FIFA is your money," he said, jabbing his left index finger to the 207 members of soccer federations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe before the election.

"It is not the money of the FIFA president. It's your money," added Infantino, sounding more like a CEO promising a dividend to shareholders.

A rare burst of spontaneous applause followed, signaling a shift in momentum toward Infantino, who since his 30s managed the billion-dollar Champions League revenues for UEFA.

It resonated with members of the corruption ravaged soccer bodies of the Americas, known as CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. FIFA froze a combined $20 million of their funds in December in the aftermath of the U.S. Justice Department's sprawling investigation of bribe-taking by top FIFA officials.

"Gianni's speech was a president's speech," said Kohzo Tshima of Japan, a new member of FIFA's long-tainted executive committee, adding that his words changed the atmosphere in the election hall.

In the first round, Infantino took a surprising lead with 88 votes — just three more than Sheikh Salman but key to making him look like a winner with valuable momentum. Prince Ali received 27 votes, and Champagne seven.

Then, in the second round, Infantino received 115 votes to earn a decisive majority over Sheikh Salman, who received 88 votes. Prince Ali got four votes, and Champagne none.

"I talked to Gianni last night and we said we'd support Prince Ali," said U.S. delegation head Sunil Gulati, "but also he knew where we would be as it unfolded if it did, in the way it did."

No second-round has been needed in a FIFA presidential election since 1974. That year, Joao Havelange of Brazil needed two rounds to defeat 13-year incumbent Stanley Rous of England.

Infantino, like the 78-year-old Blatter, is from the Valais region in the Swiss Alps. He will be president until May 2019, completing the remainder of Blatter's term.

Blatter, 79, won a fifth term last year but, amid the escalating corruption scandals, bowed to pressure four days after the election and said he would resign. He was subsequently banned for six years for financial mismanagement and was absent Friday after 40 years as a fixture at FIFA meetings.

"I congratulate Gianni Infantino sincerely and warmly on his election as the new president," Blatter said in a statement. "With his experience, expertise, strategic and diplomatic skills he has all the qualities to continue my work and to stabilize FIFA again."

Sheikh Salman was expected to lead the first round with backing from Africa and the Asian soccer confederation he has led since 2013.

He also had behind him the Kuwait-based vote-gathering operation of Olympic power- broker Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah, his FIFA executive committee colleague, who sustained a rare electoral loss.

Still, he had been the most criticized and scrutinized candidate throughout the campaign. The issue of Bahrain's human rights record was often cited by Gulf activists but had not seemed to seriously trouble voters outside Europe.

Sheikh Salman has strongly denied claims about his role in the Arab Spring protests of 2011 when he was Bahrain's soccer federation president.

Infantino takes over a wealthy but vulnerable soccer body whose image and confidence has been shattered by the escalating scandals.

Before electing FIFA's first new president since 1998, 87 percent of the 207 voting federations passed wide-ranging reforms to guard against corruption and curb the powers of its leader.

Those include preventing presidents from serving more than three four-year terms, reducing their powers and guaranteeing more independent oversight for FIFA's decision-making and spending. The executive committee will be renamed the FIFA Council, with more female members. Stricter integrity checks will also control top officials.

FIFA and its lawyers hope the reform will help show U.S. prosecutors the soccer body is serious about changing its culture, and protect its status as a victim in the American investigation. A total of 41 people and marketing agencies have been indicted or made guilty pleas, and Blatter is a target.

Story: Graham Dunbar / Associated Press

TOKYO — Japan's latest census confirmed the hard reality long ago signaled by shuttered shops and abandoned villages across the country: the population is shrinking.

Japan's population stood at 127.1 million last fall, down 0.7 percent from 128.1 million in 2010, according to results of the 2015 census, released Friday. The 947,000 decline in the population in the last five years was the first since the once-every-five-years count started in 1920.

Unable to count on a growing market and labor force to power economic expansion, the government has drawn up urgent measures to counter the falling birth rate.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made preventing a decline below 100 million a top priority. But population experts say it would be virtually impossible to prevent that even if the birth rate rose to Abe's target of 1.8 children per woman from the current birthrate of 1.4.

Without a substantial increase in the birthrate or loosening of staunch Japanese resistance to immigration, the population is forecast to fall to about 108 million by 2050 and to 87 million by 2060.

Tokyo's rush hour trains are just as crowded as ever: Japan's biggest cities have continued to grow as younger workers leave small towns in search of work. The census showed Tokyo's population grew to 13.5 million, up 2.7 percent since the 2010 census.

In this Nov. 17, 2015, file photo, a shopper walks past a clothing shop display at a shopping street of Ginza area in Tokyo. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press

But a visit to any regional city will find entire blocks of small shops shuttered, the owners usually either retired or deceased. In rural areas, even just outside Tokyo, villages are mostly empty, fields overgrown and bus and train services intermittent thanks to scant demand.

The rate of population growth peaked in 1950 and has fallen continuously since 1975. By 2011 it had hit zero, the census figures show.

Though Japan is leading this demographic shift, the rest of Asia is following. In South Korea, China and elsewhere in Asia, improved life spans and falling birthrates are raising worries over how to provide for the rapidly expanding ranks of seniors with shrinking labor forces.

A World Bank report issued late last year forecast that health and pension spending will rise sharply at a time when elders can count on less support from their families.

"The rapid pace and sheer scale of aging in East Asia raises policy challenges, economic and fiscal pressures and social risks," the report said.

It recommended that governments facilitate more participation in the labor force by women and seniors, provide better childcare and elder-care, and revamp their pension and health systems to cope.

For Japan, the demographic crunch is one of the biggest challenges to a postwar economic model based on rising incomes and consumption.

Nearly a third of all Japanese were over 65 years old in 2015. By 2050, almost 40 percent will be older than 65, according to projections by the National Institute of Population and Social Securities Research.

Richard Katz of The Oriental Economist forecasts that by 2045 there will be 13 percent fewer workers per person in Japan. That means each worker would need to produce 13 percent more in terms of economic value to offset the decline and maintain current living standards.

Japan's economy has stagnated for most of the past two decades partly because companies are reluctant to invest in a market they are convinced will continue to shrink.

Abe took office in late 2012 vowing to spur growth through massive stimulus and sweeping reforms to improve Japan's competitiveness. So far few of the reforms have been realized, though corporate profits soared thanks to the resulting weakening in the Japanese yen against other currencies.

Meanwhile, Abe's growth agenda has stalled, as companies have opted to invest their cash piles overseas, in faster growing markets, instead of upgrading factories and raising wages — moves that might stimulate demand inside Japan.

Story: Elaine Kurtenbach / Associated Press

LUNG ZA, Myanmar — Opium is a scourge to many of Myanmar's poor communities ravaged by drug addiction, but to the farmers who grow it, it is a living.

The contradiction is highlighted, sometimes violently, by a grassroots movement in northern Kachin state that has mobilized thousands of men, women and youths to march through the countryside — many dressed in camouflage vests and helmets, as if for battle — on a mission to destroy fields of poppy flowers from which opium and its derivative, heroin, are made.

Fifteen years ago, drug enforcement authorities in Myanmar announced a plan to eliminate opium by 2014. They achieved a significant reduction, but the decline has stalled in recent years, leaving the country the second-biggest producer after Afghanistan, and forcing the drug-free target date to be pushed back to 2019.

With drug abuse on the rise, especially among young people, activists joined with the Kachin Baptist Convention, the state's most influential civil institution, to create a loose organization called Pat Jasan to stamp out the drug trade their area. Many Kachin, one of the largest ethnic minorities in Myanmar, are Christian and motivated by their faith to root out drugs.

In this Jan. 22, 2016, photo, a leader of Pat Jasan plans their opium eradication march in Wai Maw, northern Kachin State, Myanmar.  Photo:  Hkun Lat / Associated Press

One group of 1,300 marchers has been hiking through the hills for more than a week. Along the way, they try to convince poppy farmers to destroy their crops, or they fan out into the fields and slash away at the bulb-topped plants with machetes.

Poppy production has flourished in the region due to a power vacuum amid the decades-long conflict between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army, which is pressing for self-determination. In some cases, ethnic minority groups including the Kachin have financed their struggle through the drug trade. Amid the off-and-on fighting, neither side has clamped down on poppy-growing, a key source of income for many farmers who are not happy about Pat Jasan's crusade.

Violence has erupted along the way. On Thursday, 14 marchers were injured in an attack by unidentified assailants using automatic weapons and hand grenades while they were destroying poppy fields in Wai Maw township. Earlier, the government had stopped the group from proceeding because of the danger of armed farmers.

Last month, a 19-year-old was shot to death by a farmer, and three other Pat Jasan activists were injured by a land mine.

In this Jan. 23, 2016, photo, a member of Pat Jasan prays at Wai Maw village at the start of their poppy eradication march in northern Kachin State, Myanmar. Photo: Hkun Lat / Associated Press

The government has provided a modicum of protection by sending some soldiers or police as escorts, but they fled when the group was attacked on Thursday, said Lum Hkawng, the secretary of the group.

While the drug trade has ruined many lives, the United Nations says surveys show that many villagers depend on the crop to earn a living.

"Opium poppy is cultivated because it provides a means of subsistence in the face of poverty," Tun Nay Soe of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime office in Yangon said in a statement.

A march last month took activists to Hkam Ju village in Kam Pai Ti sub-township, where poppy farmers told them there was no need to destroy their crop, they would do it themselves — if they were given rice and other food in return. One of the Pat Jasan leaders, Tang Gun, said they didn't bring rice, but could send them food later if the farmers insisted. The campaign is funded by the Kachin Baptist Convention and donations from local residents.

Later, in Lung Za village, the Pat Jasan members proceeded to slash away at poppy fields.

"All we wanted is to stop poppy production and drug addiction among young people," said Tang Gun. "We are losing our society and this is why we are campaigning against poppy production."

Story: Hkun Lat / Associated Press