  We report on the latest (2007 Jan) observations of supernova remnant (SNR)
1987A from the XMM-Newton mission. Since the 2003 May observations of Haberl et
al. (2006), 11 emission lines have experienced increases in flux by factors ~ 3
to 10, with the 775 eV line of O VIII showing the greatest increase; we have
observed 6 lines of Fe XVII and Fe XVIII previously unreported by XMM-Newton. A
two-shock model representing plasmas in non-equilibrium ionization is fitted to
the EPIC-pn spectra, yielding temperatures of ~ 0.4 and ~ 3 keV, as well as
elemental abundances for N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S and Fe. We demonstrate that the
abundance ratio of N and O can be constrained to less than ~20% accuracy.
Within the same confidence interval, the same analysis suggests that the C+N+O
abundance varies from ~ 1.1 to 1.4 X 10^-4. Normalizing our obtained abundances
by the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) values of Hughes, Hayashi & Koyama (1998),
we find that O, Ne, Mg and Fe are under-abundant, while Si and S are
over-abundant, consistent with the findings of Aschenbach (2007). Such a result
has implications for both the single-star and binary accretion/merger models
for the progenitor of SNR 1987A. In the context of the binary merger scenario
proposed by Morris & Podsiadlowski (2006, 2007), material forming the inner,
equatorial ring was expelled after the merger, implying that either our derived
Fe abundance is inconsistent with typical LMC values or that iron is
under-abundant at the site of the progenitor star of SNR 1987A.
