Bloomberg Gustavo Petro ceded his front-runner status for Colombia’s presidency to a little known 77-year-old construction magnate, in a sign of how voters are increasingly willing to gamble on untested leaders who promise change. Rodolfo Hernandez’s surprise surge to place second in the election sets up a June 19 runoff with Petro, a former mayor of Bogota whose program ...

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the country needed to focus on new areas of growth as a panel laid out proposals for his “new form of capitalism” aimed at reducing social disparities and driving the economy. “We’ve put together a grand design for a new capitalism,” Kishida said at a meeting of the panel. “We’ll seek new growth, ...

  Bloomberg Chinese authorities are facing an uphill battle convincing companies and households to boost borrowing as long as Covid outbreaks and lockdowns continue to crush confidence. After loan growth weakened in April to the worst level in almost five years, several indicators suggest the data for May won’t be much better. Housing sales have continued to slump, indicating a ...