(CNN) – Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says China will begin to revise its future policy on North Korea.

Rudd outlines three reasons for this shift including North Korea’s nuclear weapons program aggravating regional U.S. allies; the potential for an escalating conflict should North Korea attack South Korea; and the damage to China’s foreign reputation as a supporter of the regime.

Rudd adds that China faces huge challenges in transforming its domestic economic growth model to meet the workforce demands for higher wages and living standards.

(CNN) –Opposition Leader Mohamed ElBaradei says the solution for Egypt's terrible shape is a political one, not a military one.

ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, tells CNN's John Defterios that Egypt must start political reconciliation to stop the social unrest and violence in the country.

The North African state needs support from the International Monetary Fund to "jump start" the economy, according to ElBaradei.

(CNN) – Moira Forbes talks about women in the workplace after Forbes recently named Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg the world's most powerful woman in business.

Forbes says Sandberg has received much attention around the release of her book "Lean In" focusing on women in the workforce.

Forbes added that Sandberg has grown Facebook into a multi-billion dollar company and her success if "extraordinary" with a book that is "personal and candid."

(CNN) – Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council, says the Iranian-Pakistan gas pipeline could be a strategy by Pakistan to align more closely with Iran.

The new pipe labeled the “peace pipeline” runs between south Iran to the Pakistan city of Multan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met on March 11 to mark the beginning of construction on the Pakistani side.

The U.S. says the pipeline could violate sanctions on Iran over the country’s nuclear program.

(CNN) – Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who died this week, built his support on a populist platform of sharing the country's oil wealth with the poor.

Yet Venezuela's economy, and the future of its oil industry, remains deeply vulnerable.

CNN's John Defterios talks with Fereidun Fesharaki, the chairman of FACTS Global Energy, who says the country's oil industry is in a "shambles." So what challenges a new leader face?

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker says the country's debt problem is a "ticking time bomb." He describes the U.S. as "broke" and says if it wasn't for the dollar as the global reserve currency the U.S. would be "Greece."

(CNN) - The Moscow Stock Exchange is the latest company to trade on its own platform.

It comes after the company sold its shares at an Initial Public Offering last week - at the low end of the IPO range.

The stock began trading Friday , providing a valuation of more than $4 billion.

John Defterios sat down with Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and asked him why, despite the lukeman response, he sees potential in the exchange.

(CNN) - Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown tells CNN’s John Defterios that protectionism has “taken over” in global trade, while advocating an agreement between developed economies in the West and emerging markets in the East.

Brown, who was UK premier from 2007 to 2010, said the problem that Europe and the U.S. face is that both do not have a big enough share of each other’s markets.

His comments come after the U.S. and European Union announced talks will begin later this year on a multi-trillion dollar free-trade pact to boost economic growth.

On the UK’s membership in Europe, Brown said British jobs depend on the EU and the idea that Britain could leave “offends” the country’s history, economics and culture.

(CNN) – The room was filled with a certain buzz and not an empty seat could be found in the grand ballroom. I counted 14 television cameras lined up across the back of the room, and the center table where I was sitting had chief executives representing about a dozen sectors from advertising to power transmission.

A few minutes later a young, dapper man in a cobalt blue suit, matching suede loafers and a crisp white shirt - minus a tie - takes the center seat to my right. All eyes fix their gaze on Greece's rising star, 38 year-old Alexis Tsipras.

With a calm demeanor, but electric smile, the leader of the far left Syriza party and now the official opposition in the Greek parliament greets the host of the conference Daniel Franklin, executive editor of the Economist magazine. He turns and offers the same warm handshake to me and the first public policy address to the Greek business community gets underway.

Moments later, Tsipras takes the stage and wastes little time accusing the newly elected coalition government, made up of leaders from a previous generation, of rolling over in Brussels since it "could not negotiate to obtain oxygen that was given to others without a fight". FULL POST

Vienna, Austria (CNN) – It is shaping up to be an intriguing two days in Vienna. Ministers with some of the largest oil reserves in the world will gather Thursday to determine if the more than $25 slide in global energy prices requires urgent action.  Ahead of the ministerial meeting, they will meet with their counterparts from the private sector and air their views at the OPEC seminar Wednesday at the Hofburg Palace, before an audience of 1,200 energy executives.

Uprisings throughout North Africa - which shut down 90% of Libya's oil production for months - military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, and rising demand from China kept markets on edge and drove prices higher last year and through the first quarter of 2012.
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