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FILE PHOTO: The Olympic rings are pictured in front of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, December 7, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse - 

The NHL Players' Association is still waiting for information from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Beijing about COVID-19 protocols that will be in place at next year's Winter Olympics, executive director Don Fehr said.

The National Hockey League agreed in September to allow a break in the 2021-22 regular season that would enable the world's top players to take part in the Winter Games.

NHL players missed the last edition of the Olympics in South Korea in 2018 after the league failed to negotiate a similar season break with the International Ice Hockey Federation.

A report in the Toronto Star said the IOC had issued new COVID-19 protocol information to athletes which included a possible quarantine of up to five weeks in the case of a positive test, prompting the NHL to seek clarity.

"We're waiting on an awful lot of information to come from the IOC and the Chinese. We still don't know what the COVID situation will be as we get closer," Fehr told ESPN on Saturday.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said during Friday's Board of Governors meeting in Florida that the players would ultimately decide if they would participate in the Games as concerns had "only been magnified" by COVID-19, according to the NHL website.

"There certainly hasn't been a lot of players that have gone public," Fehr said.

"But it's fair to say that the longer it stretches out where we don't have concrete answers to what happens over there in an unfortunate circumstance, then the more difficult it becomes."

The IOC did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

The Beijing Games are scheduled to begin on Feb. 4 while the preliminary round play of the men's ice hockey tournament starts on Feb. 9//CNA

Swimmers wait at the starting point of the annual harbour swimming race in Hong Kong. (Photo: AFP/Bertha WANG) - 

An annual swim across Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour was held on Sunday (Dec 12) for the first time in three years, after being cancelled due to the protests and then the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Habour Race is one of a few major sporting events permitted to resume this year in the financial hub.

However, under the government's strict anti-virus restrictions only half of the usual 3,000 swimmers were allowed to compete, and all were required to have received two vaccinations and tested negative for COVID-19 prior to the event.

Double Olympic silver medal-winner Siobhan Haughey was among a number of professional athletes leading cheers for the swimmers when they plunged into the cool seawater as Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam's airhorn blared.

Leung Yuen-ying, 79, the oldest swimmer this year, joined the race with her daughter.

"My father used to race this so I have a special feeling for it," Leung told reporters.

"I hope that one generation after another can continue to have this meaningful event in Hong Kong," she said.

Harbour Race was scrapped last year thanks to the pandemic with the massive demonstrations rocking the city causing its cancellation in 2019.

First held in 1906, it has been suspended for two periods in history -- for five years in the 1940s around the Japanese occupation, and for three decades thanks to pollution before being reinstated in 2011.

The resumption of the race comes as the city reports zero local infections for months as well as maintaining strict quarantine rules for arrivals.

Hong Kong has recorded nearly 12,500 infections and 213 deaths from the coronavirus//CNA

FILE PHOTO: Dec 11, 2021; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Julianna Pena celebrates her victory by submission against Amand at T-Mobile Arena. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports - 

Julianna Pena pulled off one of the biggest upsets in mixed martial arts history to score a second-round submission win over Amanda Nunes and win the UFC bantamweight title at UFC 269 on Saturday.

Pena looked to be in trouble in the first round against one of the most dominant champions the sport has ever seen, but the 32-year-old came storming back in round two, rocking Nunes with combinations.

Nunes' five-year reign at the top came to an end when she tapped out at the 3:23 mark of the second round as Pena sank in a rear naked choke to hand the Brazilian her first defeat since September 2014.

"I told you, don't ever doubt me again. Willpower, strength and determination will take you places," Pena said in a post-fight interview in the cage. "You literally have the ability to do anything you want in this life, and I just proved that tonight."//CNA

Hanaa al-Yasbu, a displaced Syrian widow, huddles with her children - she dreams of earning 50 Turkish lira a day 'so they do not sleep hungry'. (Photo: AFP/Bakr Alkasem) - 

Mohammed al-Debek, a schoolteacher in northern Syria, is on strike: The currency devaluation in neighbouring Turkey has slashed the value of his salary by two-thirds.

His town of Al-Bab lies in a northern area of war-torn Syria that in recent years has turned into a de facto Turkish protectorate.

Because the Turkish lira is now the main currency in the area, its recent nose-dive has heaped further pain on the people living there.

"My salary in 2017 was worth 160 dollars, but today it is worth 50 dollars, a fraction of its value," the 33-year-old told AFP outside the washed-out yellow walls of his school.

"It's barely enough to pay the rent."

Ankara does not only have military control of the border region, but most of the products available on the markets and even the mobile phone operator are also Turkish.

Areas of northern Syria run by Turkish-backed rebel groups switched to the lira as the main currency last year, replacing the massively devalued Syrian pound.

The lira has lost 45 per cent of its value against the dollar this year alone and Debek's purchasing power has plummeted, as has everybody else's in the region.

"After the collapse of the lira, I was forced to look for a second job after school," he said.

His new afternoon job in a bookshop earns him another US$40 but that still leaves him short of the US$200 he says he needs to make ends meet.

Turkey directly administers several districts of northern Syria and, to seal its presence in the area, has invested heavily in education, health and other sectors.

The region's economic fate is inextricably tied to Turkey's and the lira's sharp fall in recent weeks piled more misery on an enclave whose inhabitants are already scarred by war.

A recent UN report on the humanitarian situation cited estimates that "97 per cent of the population, even those that are in employment, are living in extreme poverty".

Inflation is soaring just as fast as it is in neighbouring Turkey, with basic food items such as bread selling at record prices and purchasing power at its lowest ever.

And when the price of a bag of flatbread stops rising, locals say, the amount of bread inside goes down.

Ahmed Abu Obeida, an official with the region's chamber of commerce who also owns a company importing food products from Turkey, acknowledged that consumption had slumped.

"The demand for basic materials has decreased, and the citizens in general cannot afford basic things such as their daily needs in food, medicine and heating," he told AFP.

Hanaa al-Yasbu, a 36-year-old woman who was widowed in an air strike five years ago and has since been living in a camp for war-displaced people, is one of them.

She usually earns around 20 Turkish lira a day by harvesting wheat and potatoes, enough to keep her five children warm and fed.

With her daily income now worth just a dollar and a half, Hanaa has to venture into the countryside to find firewood.

"I dream that I have about 50 lira a day to buy food for my children to feed them, so they do not sleep hungry," she said//CNA