SOFIA/BUCHAREST/SARAJEVO (Combined reports) - Thousands of Bulgarians spent a freezing night without central heating, and some companies and schools did not operate yesterday after Russian gas supplies were halted to Southeastern Europe. About 12,000 households in Bulgaria's third-largest city of Varna, on the Black Sea, and 3,800 in the northeastern town of Razgrad have been left in the cold because utilities need time to switch to alternative fuels, municipal officials said. Heating has been sharply reduced in the capital Sofia despite sub-zero temperatures outside, and dozens of schools and kindergartens are not opening in the Balkan country of 7.6 million people. In Romania, the government declared a state of emergency yesterday as deliveries of Russian gas ceased entirely, but the government insisted the country had sufficient reserves to last up to 80 days. The Bosnian capital Sarajevo was also hard hit yesterday by the halt in deliveries, reviving memories of similar hardships during the 1992-1995 war, and officials fear a possible humanitarian crisis if the gas flow is not restored soon. Sarajevo, freezing at minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), was hit hardest since most of the city households rely on gas heating. (Reuters, AFP)

NICOSIA (AFP) - A third baby died on Cyprus yesterday following an outbreak of legionnaires' disease that struck newborns at a private hospital in the capital, medical authorities said. Health Minister Christos Patsalides ordered the temporary closure of the private hospital until an investigation verifies the exact source of the potentially lethal airborne bacteria. Reports said preliminary tests had traced the source to the private hospital's water system in the maternity ward. Eleven babies born between December 17 and 27 at Nicosia's Hippocration private hospital were treated for exposure to legionnaires' disease after being transferred to the Makarios children's hospital in Nicosia. Three have since died, while two other infants remain in a serious condition at the state hospital. The remainder have been given the all-clear by doctors who say they are no longer considered to be at risk.

Several thousand Shia Muslims in the Turkish city of Istanbul donated blood for the victims of the Israeli attacks on Gaza yesterday as observant worshippers marked a key festival in the Islamic calendar, an AFP correspondent said. Queues stretched out in front of the two blood bank tents which had been set up by the Red Crescent on the outskirts of the city. Each tent can hold up to 50 patients at a time. «This year, the tents are close to breaking point. How could we do anything else when we see what is happening in Palestine?» asked 33-year-old Aytekin Sayan. «We are reliving the same massacre as in Hussein's times. Today, just as yesterday, women and children are being killed,» said Teoman Coban, a 52-year-old truck driver. (AFP)

Serbs celebrated their first Christmas in Kosovo since independence yesterday amid fears of a fresh flareup of violence in the ethnically divided town. Like Serbia, the Serb minority in Kosovo celebrates Christmas on January 7, in accordance with the Julian calendar. Dozens of people prayed in the Orthodox church of St Dimitrije in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, a town populated mostly by Serbs. But due to a recent wave of violence, the traditional midnight mass was postponed until early in the morning. Serb houses and premises were decorated with yule logs while the time-honored burning of a pile of logs known as «badnjak» took place on Christmas Eve in front of the church, followed by fireworks. (AFP)