February 18, 2006 (Saturday)
- Former Malawian Minister of Education and head of the country's anti-corruption campaign Yusuf Mwawa is sentenced to five years in prison for fraud and corruption. (BBC)
- Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez threatens to cut off oil supplies after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims that the Venezuelan government poses "one of the biggest problems" in the region. (CNN)
- Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta rebels kidnap nine foreign oil workers in Nigeria. (CNN)
- H5N1 Avian influenza crisis:
- France orders mass inoculation of domestic fowl following the discovery of an infected dead duck near Lyon. (Reuter)
- Egypt records the presence of the virus for the first time. (People's Daily online)
- India confirms the virus was responsible for the death of fifty thousand chickens in the state of Maharashtra in recent days. (Xinhua)
- Iraq reports a second human fatality. (Bloomberg)
- Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy:
- Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli resigns after criticism for wearing a T-shirt depicting the cartoons. The incident triggered yesterday's rioting outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which at least 10 people died. (BBC)
- Sixteen people are killed in northern Nigeria as demonstrators protest the cartoons by storming and burning Christian churches and businesses. (CNN)