Washington  - Disgraced financier Bernhard Madoff pleaded guilty in court Thursday to a 50-billion-dollar fraud that entwined hundreds of investors around the world, US media reported.

Madoff pleaded guilty to all 11 counts of fraud in a lower Manhattan federal court, according to broadcaster CNBC. The investor faced criminal counts including securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering and filing false statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Brussels - The European Investment Bank (EIB) on Thursday formally approved soft loans totalling 3 billion euros (3.84 billion dollars) to Europe's troubled car making industry.

This is the second instalment in a series of loans that are expected to total more than 7 billion euros by June, EIB officials said in a statement.

The money approved on Thursday will benefit a number of carmakers, including BMW, Daimler, Fiat, PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Renault, Volvo Cars, Scania and Volvo Trucks.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has declared that it will be conducting a special repo auction for Rs 598.30 billion on Thursday, March 12.

In a statement, the apex bank said that the reversal of the auction will be on March 26.

The liquidity from a special fixed rate term repo auction at 5% per annum (p.a.) against eligible securities will be provided to mutual funds (MF), non-banking financial companies (NBFC) and housing finance companies (HFC) either on incremental or on rollover basis.

Vaduz, Lichtenstein  - The Principality of Lichtenstein has agreed to make its financial sector more transparent and work better on tax issues with other countries, it said in a statement Thursday.

"Liechtenstein commits to and will implement the global standards of transparency and exchange of information as developed by the OECD," read the statement, referring to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Wellington - New Zealand's central bank slashed its benchmark interest rate Thursday by half a per cent to 3 per cent, its sixth cut since July.

The so-called official cash rate (OCR) was already at its lowest mark since it was introduced in 1999 and Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard signalled that he would cut it again.