Brazil has had a rough past few months to put it mildly. Ex-president Dilma Rousseff has been suspended and now faces an impeachment trial, interim president Michel Temer is embroiled in corruption allegations already, the economy is crumbling, and Rio has declared a state of "Public Calamity" putting the Olympic games in question. Now, to add insult to injury, we learn that Brazil's fourth largest telephone company Oi SA filed the largest bankruptcy in the country's history on Monday, Brazil is in need of a mercy rule, even as investors who have been scrambling to buy Brazilian assets in 2016 realize just how bad things really are.
After talks with creditors to restructure its debt collapsed, Oi and six subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy listing $19.26 billion in debt. In its filing, the company said it chose reorganization in order to preserve the value of its holdings and to continue to serve its customers according to the WSJ.
Oi has low penetration in the mobile phone and broadband markets, and Since 2009 the company had accumulated large amounts of debt in order to complete two mergers, first with Brasil Telecom and later with Portuguese company Portugal Telecom. As the WSJ notes, those deals failed to generate enough cash flow to fund the company's investment needs.
CEO Bayard Gontijo resigned on June 10, and although no reason was given for Gontijo's departure, shareholders had been putting significant pressure on the CEO to resist a proposal by creditors to convert debt into equity - a plan which according to the WSJ would have given a 95% stake of the restructured business to existing bondholders, thus significantly diluting shareholders.
As of March 31, Oi had reported gross debt in the amount of $14.72 billion, much of which was held by international bondholders. The bonds, as shown below, have been plunging over the past few months, anticipating precisely this outcome:
Debt negotiations involved Oi's executives and main shareholder, Bratel BV which controls 22.24% of the company. Representing the creditors was investment bank Moelis & Co who is advising creditors holding roughly 40% of the outstanding bonds. Those creditors being represented by Moelis include Pacific Investment Management Co, Citadel LLC and Wellington Management Co.
Other notable shareholders include the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan,with a 4.77% stake; the equity arm of Brazil's development bank, with 4.63%; and BlackRock, with .96%. Additional notable creditors include commercial banks such as Banco Itau SA Banco Santander SA, Banco do Brasil SA and Caixa Economica Federal. 5% is held by development banks such as the Brazilian Development bank and Banco do Nordeste do Brasil SA.
Just last week, Fitch downgraded Oi by two notches to C from CCC, citing an unsustainable capital structure.
As Bloomberg notes, the impact of Oi SA’s bankruptcy filing will go beyond Brazil, with the company’s euro-denominated bonds comprising 1.8% of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s euro high-yield index by face value, the 11th-biggest issuer in the index.
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And now that the bankruptcy spigot in Brazil has been tapped, we eagerly await as the repricing of Brazil's equities - which have soared in the past few months on empty hopes the Temer regime would magically make things better- takes place - gradually at first, then very fast.
“At 9:43 PM Eastern US last night (Sunday, June 19) the Armed Forces of the United States were reportedly ordered to set condition “DEFCON 3.” This is an extraordinary development and signals serious trouble, LIKELY requiring an expedited military response.
The defense readiness condition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces. The DEFCON system was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and unified and specified combatant commands. It prescribes five graduated levels of readiness (or states of alert) for the U.S. military. It increases in severity from DEFCON 5 (least severe) to DEFCON 1 (most severe) to match varying military situations. The chart below explains the system
To understand the severity of DefCon 3, it would help to realize that on September 10, 2001, the US Military was at DefCon 5. When the attacks of September 11 took place, the US Military was upgraded only to DefCon 4. For the US to have implemented DefCon 3 at 9:43 PM EDT on a Sunday night, means something very big is taking place.
Over the past 12 months, stock market investors around the planet have lost trillions of dollars. Since this time last June, stocks have crashed in 6 of the world’s 8 largest economies, and stocks in the other two are down as well. The charts that you are about to see are absolutely stunning, and they are clear evidence that a new global financial crisis has already begun. Of course it is true that we are still in the early chapters of this new crisis and that there is much, much more damage to be done, but let us not minimize the carnage that we have already witnessed.
In general, there have been three major waves of financial panic over the past 12 months. Late last August we saw the biggest financial shaking since the financial crisis of 2008, then in January and February there was an even bigger shaking, and now a third “wave” has begun in June. Not all areas around the globe have been affected equally by each wave, but without a doubt this new financial crisis is a global phenomenon.
The charts that I am about to show you come from Trading Economics. It is an absolutely indispensable website that is packed full of useful data, and I encourage everyone to check it out.
Let’s talk about China first. The Chinese economy is the second largest on the entire planet, and since this time last year Chinese stocks are down an astounding 40 percent…
As things have started to unravel in China, the Chinese have been selling off U.S. debt and U.S. stocks like crazy. The following comes from Bloomberg…
For the past year, Chinese selling of Treasuries has vexed investors and served as a gauge of the health of the world’s second-largest economy.
The People’s Bank of China, owner of the world’s biggest foreign-exchange reserves, burnt through 20 percent of its war chest since 2014, dumping about $250 billion of U.S. government debt and using the funds to support the yuan and stem capital outflows.
While China’s sales of Treasuries have slowed, its holdings of U.S. equities are now showing steep declines.
Japan has the third largest economy in the world, and over the past year Japanese stocks are down a total of 26 percent from the peak…
Personally, I have been extremely alarmed by what has been happening in Japan lately. Japanese stocks were down almost 500 points last night, and overall the Nikkei is down a whopping 1,800 points so far in June.
Germany has the fourth largest economy in the world, and over the past year their stocks have fallen 19 percent from the peak of the market…
The key thing to watch for in Germany are serious troubles at their biggest bank. I wrote a long article about the slow-motion implosion of Deutsche Bank last month, and just this week Deutsche Bank stock hit an all-time low.
The fifth largest economy on the planet belongs to the United Kingdom, and since last June their stocks have fallen about 13 percent…
One week from today, the “Brexit” vote will be held in the UK, and if they vote to leave the EU that could have very serious economic and financial implications for them and for the rest of Europe as well. For an in-depth look at this, please see my previous article entitled “June 23, 2016: The Brexit Vote Could Change EVERYTHING And Plunge Europe Into Financial Chaos“.
France has the sixth largest economy in the world, and over the past year French stocks are down 20 percent from the peak of the market…
The French economy is really struggling these days, and we have not heard much about it in the U.S. media, but there have been tremendous riots in major cities in France in recent weeks.
The seventh largest economy on our planet belongs to India. Even though India is facing some very serious economic problems, their stocks are doing okay for the moment. Even though stocks in India are down over the past 12 months, we have not seen a major financial crisis over there just yet.
But there is definitely a major crisis in the eighth largest economy in the world. Italian stocks are down a staggering 32 percent from the peak of the market. That means approximately a third of all stock market wealth in Italy is already gone…
Earlier this year, I wrote about the horrifying collapse of the Italian banking system that has greatly accelerated since the start of 2016. It looks like virtually all of their big banks will ultimately need to be bailed out, and this threatens to become a far bigger crisis than the crisis in Greece ever was.
And let us not leave off the ninth largest economy in the world. Not too long ago, CNN ran an article entitled “Brazil: Economic collapse worse than feared“. So not only are they admitting that the ninth largest economy on the globe is collapsing, they are also admitting that it is even worse than what the experts had anticipated.
So did I leave anyone off the list?
Ah yes, I haven’t even addressed what has been going on in the United States yet.
U.S. stocks did crash last August, but then they recovered.
Then they crashed again in January, but then they recovered again.
Now U.S. stocks have been taking another tumble here in June, but we are being assured that there is nothing to worry about.
Hopefully this article will clear a lot of things up. In this piece, I have presented undeniable evidence that a new global financial crisis has begun over the past 12 months. We have not seen global stock declines of this nature since the great financial crisis of 2008, but much worse is still to come.
I would love to be wrong about that last part.
It would be wonderful if the worst was now behind us and good times for the global financial system were ahead.
Unfortunately, every single indicator that I am watching is telling me just the opposite.
It’s one of the most frequent talking points of Pope Francis.
It’s definitely part of his appeal for the media and simultaneously one of the most hurtful things for those inside the Church for whom the faith means everything. I’m speaking of the Pope’s penchant for castigating faithful adherents of the Catholic faith as “obsessed,” “doctors of the law,” “neo-pelagian,” “self-absorbed,” “restorationist,” “fundamentalist,” “rigid,” “ideological,” “hypocritical,” and much more.
The effect of the all-too-frequent barrage from the lips of the Pontiff himself is potentially deadly. It confirms the prejudice of the world against faithful Christians as the media constantly portrays them – as hypocrites and worse. Moreover, it permits the false categorization of adherent Christians with fundamentalist Islamic radicals who need to be suppressed to ensure public safety.
Who can blame the media for such comparisons when the Pope has made them himself? “Fundamentalism is a sickness that we find in all religions,” said the Pope in November while flying home from Africa.
“Among Catholics there are many, not a few, many, who believe to hold the absolute truth,” he added. “They go ahead by harming others with slander and defamation, and they do great harm. … And it must be combated.”
Most of what you learned from orthodox history schooling is flat out wrong. Add into this indoctrination, the movie accounts that portray the reasons and motivations about the conflict during World War II. Especially, the European theater which has been obfuscated in scores of books and political analysis, mislead and distort the facts. All the efforts to chastise the NAZI regime profoundly ignore the true end results of the German surrender. To the victors belongs the descriptive end account of the narrative. Yet, when you peel back the onion, the tears that are exposed carry forward well into the next millennium.
Often the comparison of Napoleon’s dream of a unified Europe ruled by France with Hitler’s boast of a thousand year Reich implies that both lusted for dominance across the continent. Events bear out that both brought carnage, while failing to win the political outcome. Neither was able to implement their plan for integration, but with the unconditional surrender to the Allies, the National Socialist dream actually began to be implemented in a distinctive corporatist form.
“This article highlights the birth place of the "Brussels EU" on the drawing boards of the Nazi/IG Farben-coalition for a post-war Europe under their control. It is an excerpt of the speech by Dr. Rath on the occasion of receiving the "Relay of Life" award from survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp.”
Stripped out of the plot, was the ultimate goal that would eliminate any semblance of national identity. Global control always is founded upon the need to eradicate as much of cultural distinctiveness as a path to eliminate national sovereignty.
The Nazi-Fascist Origins of the EU Superstate is described in 2008 by the “director of the Freenations website Rodney Atkinson — former British Ministerial Adviser, author, and lecturer at University of Mainz in Germany.” The following excerpt sums up nicely the reality of what happened over the last seven decades.
“There has been a coup against the people of Britain and those nation-states of Europe which were liberated from Fascism in 1945 and from Communism in 1989. This has been a coup against the sovereignty of the voters, the very definition of democracy. Those who sought to destroy democratic sovereignty knew they could not succeed if they were open about their intentions. And they could not succeed if they attempted their coup within one democratic system. They therefore acted behind the democratic system and across national borders. They established in the European Union a bureaucratic corporatist state so monolithic that most can be intimidated into silence by the very size of the project, and emasculated by the necessary remoteness of the powers involved.
The plans for this essentially fascist process were laid and carried out by, among others, many leading Nazis and Fascists after the second world war, and realized in the European Union today. The fact that many naïve constructors of today’s Europe had good intentions does not mitigate the fact that they have summoned up the hated regimes of the fascist past and created structures built on the ashes of democratic nationhood, all of which coincides with the plans of the very European fascists they thought they were expunging.
Now that their hitherto secret aim of turning the democratic nation-states of Europe into a gigantic corporatist empire is imminent, the new dictators have grown bold. Now they can act as if the voters do not exist, for they know the voters have no power. Although the European Constitution was thrown out comprehensively by the people of France and the Netherlands, it has been reintroduced in the form of the so-called Lisbon Treaty, and EU governments have been intimidated into avoiding referenda of their peoples. Having blocked such referenda, the European Commission had the unmitigated gall to launch a new initiative under the heading “Debate Europe: Giving Citizens a Voice.”
Now if you want to dismiss this assessment out of hand and have the patience of a careerist technocrat, the Fact Sheets on the European Union looks at the Legal basis, the objectives and the Main principles of the EU. Also, the public relations of The history of the European Union is provided in this establishment account of the prize from WWII.
Step back and reflect on the actual success from this European Union? Is Europe still a cradle of Western Civilization or has it become a cauldron of a globalist toxic stew? The answer should not be difficult to arrive at for anyone who has the integrity and honesty to admit the truth about a world in turmoil.
“Imagine – the European Union was to collapse tomorrow – or any day soon for that matter. Europeans would dance in the streets. The EU has become a sheer pothole of fear and terror: Economic sanctions – punishment, mounting militarization, the abolition of civil rights for most Europeans. A group of unelected technocrats, representing 28 countries, many of them unfit to serve in their own countries’ political system, but connected well enough to get a plum job in Brussels – are deciding the future of Europe. In small groups and often in secret chambers they decide the future of Europe.”
If the NAZI juggernaut crushed the Soviet Communists and made a settlement with England, do you really believe that the same Bilderberg globalists would be administrating the continent much differently from the elites who run the EU today? Certainly that famous German efficiency might be lost, but the end result is that the swastika just looks different with gold stars on a blue background flag.
If saving democracy was the objective of waging war against Hitler, then by the way the EU runs their confederation, victory had a much higher price to be paid decades later.
“Britain exiting the EU would be a nightmare for the NWO. Today they showed us how far they will go to prevent a potential “Brexit”. All the way, whatever it takes. They have now turned things into a “hot war”, pitting the will of the people, against the crush of power. Today’s psyop was as easy as it was obvious. But if British people are still feisty—even waking up to their EU shackles, this little victory by the EU/NWO might be Pyrrhic. The whole Brexit war has planted the will of the people against the perpetuation of power shackles over the people.”
“A really crucial detail about the upcoming EU referendum has gone virtually unmentioned and it is probably the most crucial detail: Parliament doesn't actually have to bring Britain out of the EU if the public votes for it.
That is because the result of June 23 referendum on Britain's EU membership is not legally binding. Instead, it is merely advisory, and, in theory, could be totally ignored by UK.”
Just think how a NAZI bureaucrat would administer their fascist policies that favor the hegemony of the German industrial Reich. Following the sentiments of the people was never part of the triumph or the will for the Fuhrer. Seemingly not much has changed under the authoritarianism of Brussels that UK MP’s may follow.
When the style of the despotism changes, while the substance of the end objectives remains the same, it is time to admit that individual European nations were the definite losers in the staged wars that only advance globalism.
As hard as it is to accept by docile yet confused patriots, the national origins of European countries are in danger of survival from the continued existence of the European Union. The prospects of internal political resistance have never been better from the gains in support of the likes of Marine Le Pen in France and Norbert Hofer from Austria. Thus, the gates of the EU are becoming more assailable than the flood from illegal infiltrators.
The designs of the transnational elites have remained the same. The EU is a miserable failure when judged in terms of protecting national identity. It is time to unwind this system of fascist unilateralism that treats citizens as a useless inconvenience to the unelected privileged cabal of globalism.
The European Union has become the heritage of all that was wrong that came out of World War II. End it now before WWIII becomes the final result of its arrogance.
“So shalt thou delight thyself in Hashem; and He shall give thee the petitions of thy heart.” Psalms 37:4 (The Israel Bible™)
Geula (redemption) is exceedingly near and we need to make others aware of its impending arrival. These are two core messages delivered last week in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel by prolific author and End of Days expert Rabbi Pinchas Winston to an audience of English-speaking olim (immigrants to Israel).
Rabbi Winston compared the urgency with which people need to focus on the forthcoming redemption to having a plane reservation. When a person who has to board a plane at a certain time, everything that day is oriented around the awareness that the most important task of the day is being on that flight at departure time.That’s how concrete becoming focused on geula should be. That’s what it means to have geula-consciousness, he explained.
In his lecture, Rabbi Winston made a clear connection between chaotic current world events, such as extreme weather and Islamic terrorism, and the urgent necessity for redemption.
Rabbi Pinchas Winston (Photo: Courtesy)
“Today, it is so much easier than, let’s say, 10 years ago, to want Moshiach (messiah) to come, because things are out of control… If you step back and look at all the events of history, everything is so ‘Armageddon-ish’. It’s actually quite bad. The world is actually tremendously unstable.”
Rabbi Winston gave credit to God for the fact that the world hasn’t already imploded on itself.
“The only reason why we are sitting here so calmly right now is not because the world has stability. It’s because HaKadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed Be He) has His finger in the dike.”
In a voice filled with passion for the topic, Rabbi Winston declared, “And now we’re approaching the Final Redemption. Without question. Moshiach is around the corner… Without question he’s here already. I don’t know how old he is, we’re he’s sitting, what he’s doing, what he’s learning. But he’s here. He’s not going to be born tomorrow. We’re just too close to the end. Way too close to the end. He has to be here right now!
“So why hasn’t he revealed himself? Why are we still fighting? Why are we still struggling? Why are we still suffering? Why is there still terrorism?”
His conclusion is that, at this time, the Jewish people “lack the national will for geula.” That’s something he’s intent on changing.
Rabbi Winston described for Breaking Israel News how several ideas came together in his thinking, including the importance of national will. He used the Biblical story of the newly-freed Israelite slaves crossing the Red Sea as a demonstration of the power of the Jewish people working together toward a single goal. Chapter 14 of the Book of Exodus describes how the Children of Israel had no obvious means of escape from Pharaoh and his horsemen. Their faith in God was so strong that they went forward into the sea. And God miraculously opened the sea for them.
And Hashem said unto Moshe: ‘Wherefore criest thou unto Me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. Exodus 14:15
In addition, Rabbi Winston’s study of Judaism’s mystical tradition, known as Kabbalah, helped him recognize “how much of a role human will plays in actually creating and building the realities we want and often need.” Later, he studied Quantum Physics and was captivated by the discovery that “human observation plays a role in determining the outcome of experiments, and life in general.”
These ideas, along with his impressive command of Jewish history and Torah sources helped propel his thinking. “What I realized, and what I came to understand, compelled me to produce an entire seminar based upon these ideas.”
“I no longer had any choice,” he shared with Breaking Israel News, “at least with respect to these ideas. I had to get out there and do my part to energize our national will for redemption, while there is still time.The Final Redemption is at the door. It will be our collective national will to let it in that will let it occur peacefully.”
Credit to Breaking Israel News
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/70138/end-days-expert-declares-final-redemption-door/#ZBCK6GGqt62t7lgo.99
A foreign army consisting of 31,000 soldiers from an anti-American alliance are conducting military “exercises” a few miles from San Diego. Hundreds of tanks converge on the Rio Grande, while jets from 24 countries converge in attack formation, darting through Mexican skies.
It isn’t hard to imagine Washington’s response.
Yet that’s precisely what has been happening on Russia’s border with the NATO alliance, as the cold war returns.Economic sanctions aimed at sinking Russia’s fragile economy, plus a propaganda campaign designed to characterize Russian President Vladimir Putin as the second coming of Stalin – or, in Hillary Clinton’s view, Hitler – have history running in reverse. Once again, an iron curtain is descending across Europe – only this time it’s the West’s doing.
The European Union renewed sanctions against Crimea on Friday: their “crime” – holding a referendum in which the overwhelming majority of voters opted for union with Russia, restoring what had been the status quo since the days of Catherine the Great. And the EU is slated to extend sanctions against the Russian Federation later this week.
Yet dissent against this revival of the cold war is rising in Europe, notably in Germany,where Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier iscallingfor the “gradual” lifting of sanctions to reflect progress in the implementation of theMinsk accords, which call for the demilitarization of Ukraine and elections in rebel-held territory. This reflects a division within Germany’s left-right coalition government: Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are holding out for “full” implementation of the accords. Yet it is the government in Kiev – held hostage byfar-right crazies– that has been dragging its feet over Minsk,refusingto grant autonomy to east Ukraine andvowing to continue the waragainst the rebels in spite of Kiev’s lack of success in pacifying the rebellious region.
Steinmeier went further in another interview, characterizing provocative military exercises conducted near Russia’s borders as “warmongering.”The “drill,” which ended Friday, simulated a Western response to an improbable Russian attack on Poland. “What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmonger,” averred Steinmeier:
“Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken. We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation. [It would be] fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.”
The reality is that it is NATO that has to be deterred: ever since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the implosion of international communism the West has been advancing eastward, gathering its forces at the very gates of Moscow. They didn’t call the recent exercises “Spearhead” for nothing. Herr Steinmeier is correct that the “tank parade” within spitting distance of the Kremlin is “symbolic,” but neglects to tell us what it symbolizes, which is nothing less than World War III.
The Germans are rebelling against the EU/NATO war on Russia because, as in the old cold war, they will be caught in the middle: if the unthinkable becomes thinkable and hostilities break out Germany will become a battlefield, i.e. a smoking ruin. As Cold War II rears its ugly head, it’s hardly surprising that Euro-neutralism is making a comeback.
Aside from that, the post-cold war structures erected by the new cold warriors are coming apart at the seams: the EU itself is disintegrating, with Euro-skepticism threatening to take Britain out of the Union and the rise of anti-EU parties across Europe challenging the legitimacy of the Brussels bureaucracy.
And here in the US, questions are being raised about the utility of the main bulwark of the anti-Russian foreign policy of the West: former defense secretary Robert Gates wants to know why our European protectorates are failing to pay their fair share of NATO’s mounting costs. And presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has gone much further, declaring that NATO is “very obsolete” and raising the possibility that, if he makes it to the White House, the Western alliance will be no more, or will, at least, take on a much different form.
With the focus of US foreign policy on the Middle East, and the alleged threat of ISIS preoccupying US policymakers, the impending collapse of the post-World War II international order has taken a back seat in the public eye. Yet this development is far more important, in the long run, for the simple reason that relations with Russia far outweigh whatever is happening in, say, Syria – where the Russian factor is key to solving that seemingly intractable problem.
Here, again, the political class and their journalistic camarilla split with the American people: most Americans want nothing to do with Ukraine and its many problems. The elites, however, have taken up the cause of what is one of the world’s most corrupt regimes as if it is a paragon of virtue and democratic liberalism. It is neither: the present rulers came to power in a violent coup, chasing out the democratically-elected President, and paving the way for a far-right regime that openly celebrates World War II collaborators with the Nazis.
The demonization of Putin’s Russia is based on historical illiteracy. It was only a short time ago that Russia was a one-party dictatorship where millions were enslaved by a regime that had as much blood on its hands as Nazi Germany. To fail to acknowledge the enormous progress that country has made, against overwhelming odds, is beyond ridiculous.
The neoconservatives have long held a grudge against Putin for denouncing the Iraq war as a foolish adventure: American liberals use Putin as a piñata, the puncturing of which is supposed to prove how “tough” they are. Indeed, the Clintons have long been among the worst of the Russia-bashers, and a Clinton Restoration will see the US go head-to-head with Putin, not only in Europe but also in Central Asia, where Bill has long been canoodlingwith various despots.
It’s time to lift the new iron curtain that is descending across Europe. Russia and the United States have many interests in common: a new cold war, which could easily escalate into a hot war, is in no one’s interests.
At least four people have died from the blistering heat that has gripped the western United States and fed wildfires across three states, forcing hundreds of homes to be evacuated, authorities said on Monday.
The dead were three hikers and a mountain biker who succumbed to the heatwave in Arizona on Sunday, where record-breaking temperatures were reported in some areas.
The mercury hit 118 in Phoenix on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service, breaking a record of 115 set for the date nearly 50 years ago. Some people in Arizona noticed the thermometers in their cars had spiked, with temperatures reading in the 120s.
Larry Subervi, spokesman for the Phoenix fire department, said temperatures on Sunday had soared to 120 degrees and the crushing heat was expected to get worse on Monday before easing the rest of the week.
At least four people have died from the blistering heat that has gripped the western United States and sparked wildfire warnings across the region, authorities said on Monday. Above, firefighters from Chino Hills keep watch on a wildfire near Potrero California
A Los Angeles City Fire Department helicopter flies over one of two wildfires in the Angeles National Forest above Azusa, California
Smoke from wildfires burning in Angeles National Forest fills the sky behind the Los Angeles skyline on Monday. The wildfires several miles apart devoured hundreds of acres of brush
He said one of the victims was an experienced 28-year-old female mountain biker who had embarked on a two-and-a-half-hour ride in the Phoenix area with enough water, but got overwhelmed by the heat.
The other victims were a 25-year-old man who died while hiking on the Peralta Trail near Gold Canyon, a 19-year-old woman who died while hiking in the Tuscon area and a man who was found dead near another trail.
'We have a heatwave every year, but we are close to our all-time record in 1990 of 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 Celsius),' he told AFP.
The heatwave has fed wildfires in California, New Mexico and Arizona, forcing evacuations in some areas.
Some 140 families were evacuated in the Santa Barbara area of California where about 2,000 firefighters for several days have been battling the so-called Sherpa fire that has already burned nearly 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares).
