Japan and China edge closer to confrontation over Beijing’s unprecedented claims in the East China Sea – Candidates are disputing the outcome of the Guatemalan presidential election – And a disturbing new report reveals the truth about “collateral damage” in the Syrian Civil War.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida today strongly denounced China's unilateral creation of an “East China Sea air defense identification zone”, calling it “totally unacceptable,” and is warning against provoking “unpredictable events”.  The Chinese plan announced two days ago covers airspace over the Senkaku Islands, which have been controlled by Japan for more than a century.  Japan over the weekend scrambled fighter jets to turn back Chinese surveillance plans heading to the Senkakus.  The US says it would defend Japan’s claim to the Senkakus.

Crews are demolishing the supermarket in Riga, Latvia where the roof collapsed, killing 54 people.  The country is observing three days of mourning.  Latvian President Andris Berzins is asking for foreign experts to assist the investigation, as the cause of the collapse is still unknown. Workers had been building a garden and children’s playground on the roof.

A right wing extremist from a banned neo-nazi party has been elected regional governor in central Slovakia.  Marian Kotleba has previously organized racist marches against the local Roma population, and expressed sympathy for the nazi occupiers during World War II.  European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor is sounding the alarm on this, saying fascists are using the democratic system against Democracy itself, and urging Europe to fight this phenomenon before it’s too late.

Both main presidential candidates are claiming victory after elections in Honduras.  Only 43 percent of the vote has been tallied, and final results are expected on Monday.  Conservative National Party candidate Juan Hernandez had 34 percent support while Xiomara Castro had 28.5 percent.  Castro is the wife of Manuel Zelaya, the Democratically elected candidate who was deposed in a military coup in 2009 as the international community sat on its thumbs and let it happen.

Indonesia ordered 15,000 people to evacuate from around Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra.  After sitting dormant for a few years, eight eruptions have unleashed tons of volcanic ash and gravel, not to mention volcanic gas.  Airlines are advised to fly around it.

Philippine boxer Manny Pacquiao, fresh off his World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title victory over Brandon Rios, is vowing to visit storm-ravaged Tacloban City.  Most of the more than 5,235 people killed in Typhoon Haiyan died in Tacoloban or the surrounding area.  Meanwhile, President Benigno Aquino is banning new home construction on the coastlines, after the typhoon’s storm surge caused so much destruction in low lying areas.

Hundreds of Syrian children were deliberately targeted by snipers over the past two and a half years of the Syrian civil war.  The London-based Oxford Research Group, which released the report, says summary executions and torture have also been used against children as young as one.  But the majority of children killed in the war died from bombs and shelling.

Human rights groups in Egypt are condemning a new law restricting public protests, requiring organizers to seek permission from police. Interim President Adly Mansour signed the law over the weekend.  It’s believed that the new law is aimed mainly at supporters of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood and the ousted president, Mohammed Morsi.