CourcyInt

INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

TO: All Strategic Intelligence Forum members

DATE: 23 March 2007

The Strategic Intelligence Forum is part of the Intelligence Research group, and as a member of the Strategic Intelligence Forum I am very pleased to send you from time to time a selection of reports published recently by Intelligence Research Ltd that I consider to be of particular STRATEGIC significance. Please find below my latest selection of Intelligence Research articles:

1. TAIWAN'S LEGAL QUESTIONS - AsiaInt Political & Strategic Review, March 2007

SUMMARY: On 4 March President Chen Shui-bian issued his strongest call yet for Taiwan to become a sovereign state. "Taiwan wants independence, wants name rectification, wants a new constitution, and wants development," Chen declared in a speech that will define the island’s political debate ahead of the legislative election in December and presidential vote in April 2008.  Should Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) win the elections, it will see victory as a popular mandate for its increasingly radical claims for sovereignty. Whether or not this leads to a formal declaration of independence, Taiwan’s dubious political status in international law is likely to come under ever-more intense scrutiny in the coming years. China’s claim under law is not as strong as often imagined, and here we explain why...

Link to full article: http://www.asiaint.com/arl/arl13313.asp

2. PROSPECTS FOR REFORM IN MYANMAR - AsiaInt Political & Strategic Review, March 2007

SUMMARY: Myanmar’s military dictatorship has reached a crossroads. Here we take a detailed look at the Burmese set-up and make some predictions as to the pariah state’s likely political trajectory...

Link to full article: http://www.asiaint.com/arl/arl13312.asp

3. MEXICO: CALDERON'S WARNING OVER OIL, Latin American Weekly Report, 22 March 2007

SUMMARY: On 18 March, the 69th anniversary of the nationalisation of the country's oil industry, Mexico's President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa announced that the country's oil reserves would last for less than 10 years at the current rate of production. The rapid dwindling of the country's oil reserves and falling production has major implications for the government which gets almost 40% of its revenues from oil...

Link to full article: http://www.latinnews.com/lwr/LWR13383.asp?instance=13

4. BUSH'S VISIT HIGHLIGHTS MERCOSUR SCHISM, Brazil & Southern Cone Report, March 2007

SUMMARY: The visit of US President George W Bush to Brazil and Uruguay earlier this month highlighted the schism within Mercosur, the trading bloc to which Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela belong. As Bush stepped onto Mercosur soil, the debate over trade asymmetries, which seriously undermine the economies of Mercosur's smallest members, Paraguay and Uruguay, were once again overshadowed by populist politics in Argentina and Venezuela. Meanwhile, the bloc's largest member, Brazil, vacillates between economic pragmatism and populist rhetoric...

Link to full article: http://www.latinnews.com/lrbs/LRBS13384.asp?instance=12

NOTE: Links to these - and other - reports can also be found in the Strategic Intelligence Monitoring Centre, which you may access on a 24/7 basis by going to www.stratintforum.com, logging in as a member, and selecting the Strategic Intelligence Monitoring Centre option.

With best regards

JKC de Courcy
Chairman
Strategic Intelligence Forum

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