World news digest of February 22, 2022

Some unnoticed news around the world, in short:

• Hong Kong decided to test its entire population for COVID-19 in March as the city struggles with its worst omicron outbreak
• Nicaraguan judges on Monday sentenced Victor Hugo Tinoco, a former high-level Sandinista official to 13 years in prison for “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”. He used to be a deputy minister in 1979 but split with Daniel Ortega, the current president who arrested Tinoco and another dozen opposition leaders last year ahead of the presidential elections.
• An independent human rights expert working with the United Nations is criticizing China and Russia for allegedly supplying weapons used by Myanmar’s military against civilians since it seized power last year.
• The prime minister of Libya Abdul Hamid Dbeibah has warned that the appointment of a new transitional government could set off war and chaos in the country. He insisted on February 21 that he would hand over power only to an elected government. Libya presidential elections were scheduled on December 24 but have been postponed over disputes between rival factions on laws governing the elections and controversial presidential hopefuls, including the son of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and commander Khalifa Hifter who failed at capturing the capital city in 2019. The PM speech comes as the House of Representatives has confirmed a new transitional government while it is argued that Dbeibah’s tenure ended in December. Libya has been unable to hold elections since its disputed legislative vote in 2014, which caused the county to split for years between rival administrations, each backed by armed militias and foreign governments.
• Three white men convicted of murder in a fatal shooting were found guilty of federal hate crimes because the victim, Ahmaud Arbery, was black. They were already sentenced to life in prison but the family viewed the hate crime trial as an important symbol that it was a racist act. The three men on February 2020 chased by a pickup truck and killed by firearms Ahmaud Arbery who would have turned 28 later this spring. Nobody was arrested for the murder in the state of Georgia in the United States until video footage shot by one of the three convicted leaked online. Defense attorneys contended they didn’t chase and kill Arbery because of his race but acted on the erroneous suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood.
• Australia Prime Minister backed a bill that would make it easier to exclude transgender women from female sports competitions.