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Here’s a good game to play with your pals: Ask them to name the most important innovations ever. Depending on the average age of the people with whom you try this trick, you are likely to get airplanes, cars, Google, iPods, and similar usual suspects. Smart alecks will cite the Pet Rock, of course. But if you can keep the conversation going a while, the exercise is incredibly instructive. What you will soon discover is that you need some basis for deciding what makes an innovation important.

Should our measure be revenues? Then the answer is likely to be mortgages or, more generally, debt. Perhaps profitability is key? Then we have to be talking about refined oil. Customers served? Then McDonald’s burgers would feature prominently. In many respects it is this underlying logic that becomes the valuable part of the puzzle. From guns to container ships

But suppose we get past these coarse commercial measures to cast our net in a more expansive way. Let us consider important innovations to be those that most changed peoples’ lives. Now you have to consider which innovations materially improved safety, standard of living, quality of life, and longevity.

Using this logic, innovation planners at Doblin believe we can defend this list of all-time-great innovations, including the ordinal ranking shown here:

1. Weapons

2. Mathematics and the number zero

3. Money

4. Printing

5. Free markets and capital markets

6. Domesticated animals and agriculture

7. Property ownership

8. Limited liability

9. Participatory democracy

10. Anesthetics and surgery

11. Vaccines and antibiotics

12. Semiconductors

13. The Internet

14. Genetic sequencing

15. Containerized shipping

You may well disagree with these selections—indeed I hope you will. (The game only gets interesting when smart people take a stand and defend their own points of view.) So let’s get some comments flying to pick those fights. For the moment I would rather note how very surprising this list is and to try to understand the lessons it offers to anyone who wants to innovate today. Homesteading

Start with a look at select individual innovations included here. Weapons at No. 1, for instance…Isn’t that just too depressing for words? Well, of course it is—especially to pacifist liberals like me. Still, love ‘em or hate ‘em, weapons have changed the planet. Initially they changed what we eat. Later they changed the balance of power. Mostly they have contributed to understood, stable, and accepted political boundaries, without which territorial disputes would be incessant and life threatening.

Or take up the interesting little oddity, property ownership, which makes the list at No. 7. How can this possibly be a great innovation? Simple enough: Once people own property, they can use the wealth they accumulate to try something else. This has the effect of raising the standard of living for everyone.

Still not persuaded? Consider the megacity of Mumbai, where fully half of the 12 million residents are squatters. In this and other shantytowns all over the world, there is no one thing you could do to increase the standard of living faster than to simply give people a deed to the places they’ve already staked out. Suddenly they have a little bit of “wealth” that they can use to generate a very small amount of capital and start a business or buy something that must be made by someone with a job. This was the logic behind the U.S. Homestead Act (1862) that allowed anyone to claim up to 160 acres of land. After clearing and working the land for five years, the homesteader would receive title to the land from the government—and this is how we settled the West. No products

Another odd duck makes the list at No. 8: limited liability. What kind of nutty item is this? As far as I am concerned the real issue here is that it may deserve a much higher ranking, perhaps as high as No. 3. Limited liability is the core notion behind what it means to have a corporation or a “limited” partnership, and it means that individuals don’t personally risk everything when their companies make a mistake.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Gold was lower in early trade, dropping away from the key 700 usd resistance level, as Asian stocks slid following the release of China’s GDP data and the dollar staged a recovery from its recent lows.

However, analysts remain confident that the precious metal will push higher on the back of continued longer term weakness in the US currency, with 700 usd still seen as a viable barrier to break.

At 10.39 am, spot gold was at 687.4 usd an ounce, weakening slightly from 688.75 usd in late New York trade yesterday.

Shares across Asia closed lower yesterday, recording their sharpest falls since the sell-off in Asian stocks in February, which sparked a global slump as fears mounted that China may tighten monetary policy.

“This is the sharpest fall in stocks since February, and gold went down with the markets then. It seems the same thing is happening now,” said Adrian Ash, analyst at BullionVault.com.

China released data showing GDP growth accelerated 11.1 pct year-on-year to 5.0287 trln yuan in the first quarter against 10.7 pct in 2006, while the consumer price index rose 2.7 pct year-on-year in the same period against 1.2 pct last year.

Speculation that China would hike interest rates in response to the data pushed Tokyo shares sharply lower, depressing markets elsewhere in east Asia and sparking fears of a plunge in stock markets worldwide.

Gold prices were also pressured by a resurgence in the US dollar, which recovered slightly from its recent sharp falls against the major currencies.

Turmoil in the Asian market has blunted investors’ appetite for risk, making the dollar a more attractive investment, while hopes abound that US manufacturing data released later today will be positive.

Nonetheless analysts remain confident that the dip in gold prices will be a temporary one.

“Some weak longs have now been stripped out of the market, with which we could not get higher,” said Gerry Schubert, an analyst at Fortis. “We can now crack the 690 usd level and higher.”

Gold has underperformed oil and base metals in the recent commodities boom, said Ross Norman, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com, and is due for a resurgence, with dollar weakness expected to persist.

“In the big picture the fundamentals remain firm,” he said. “I wouldn’t discount a test of the 700 usd level.”

Platinum meanwhile climbed to a five-month high ahead of the launch of a new exchange-traded fund by Zurich Kantonalbank on May 10.

ETFs trade commodity futures, backing up stock bought on paper with actual physical stock. As a result, the launch of an ETF often squeezes the market as it eats up the amount of physical stock available.

“In a market already tight on liquidity, this ETF would exacerbate the supply situation and (is) therefore likely to force a squeeze on prices,” noted analysts at Standard Bank.

Platinum hit 1,303 usd per ounce against 1,291 in late New York trade yesterday, its highest level since it reached 1,390 usd in November.

Its sister metal palladium posted sharp gains in sympathy to trade at 381 usd, up from 378 usd yesterday. Silver meanwhile softened slightly to 13.91 usd an ounce from 13.94 usd.

jan.harvey@thomson.com

ss/ejp

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BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - The yuan finished at 7.7165 to the dollar on the over-the-counter (OTC) market, a new high and up from a close of 7.7218 on the previous trading day.

On the exchange-traded market, the yuan also closed at a new high of 7.7160, up from 7.7210 yesterday, a Guangzhou-based trader with a foreign bank said.

The yuan traded between 7.7160-7.7199 in the OTC market and 7.7160-7.7195 in the exchange-traded market.

The central bank set the yuan central parity rate at a record 7.7199 to the dollar today, compared with the midpoint of 7.7238 yesterday.

The People’s Bank of China allows a trading band of 0.3 pct on either side of the midpoint.

derek.jiang@xfn.com

More than 40 Iraqis were killed today in separate bomb attacks aimed at bringing chaos to the holiest festival in the Shia Muslim calendar.

As millions of Shias took to the streets across the Islamic world to mark the climax of Ashoura, which commemorates the death of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, bombers attacked at least two ceremonies in northeastern Iraq. A gunman killed four pilgrims at a separate festival in southern Baghdad.

The deadliest explosion, in the town of Mandali, 60km north east of Baghdad and near the border with Iran, claimed the lives of 23 worshippers at a Shia mosque, doctors said. A further 60 people were injured when a suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives in the midst of a crowd of around 150 people entering the Ali al-Akbar mosque at about 12.20pm, police said.

The blast was the second major attack of the day in Diyali, a province in northern Iraq that has suffered months of sectarian violence among its mixed Sunni and Shia population. About an hour earlier, explosives left in a rubbish bin killed 13 people in the town of Khanaqin, also near the border with Iran.

Around 40 people were wounded when the bomb went off among Shias gathered in the street in central Khanaqin, a mainly Sunni Kurdish town with a small Shia community. Four people were then killed and six injured when a gunman ambushed worshippers in Bayaa, a district in southwestern Baghdad.

The climax of Ashoura, a week-long festival which ends today, sends devout Shias to mosques and other public places to flagellate and cut themselves with knivesin a display of mourning for the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Muhammad, who was killed by the army of the Yazid caliphate in 680AD.

The festival has been the source of enormous tension and violence between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia populations because the death of Imam Hussein, at the hands of Sunnis, is traditionally regarded as the cause of the schism between the two great strains of Islam. What’s more, he was killed on the Karbala plain, in central Iraq.

In 2004 and 2005, synchronised explosions and mortar attacks aimed at disrupting Ashoura killed more than 300 worshippers at shrines in Karbala and Baghdad. Yesterday Iraqi police and government officials claimed to have broken up an extremist Shia sect that was intent on murdering clerics in the holy city of Najaf today. A total of 263 militants were killed and 392 arrested after a huge battle on the outskirts of Najaf on Sunday. A further 11,000 police were deployed to protect worshippers in Karbala.

Processions and gatherings to mark Ashoura took place across the Islamic world today. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist movement, used the occasion to hold an enormous rally in southern Beirut and berate Israel and the western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, accused America and Israel of trying to turn Muslims against each other and starting civil wars in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, which are all torn by sectarian and factional differences.

“The future of Israel is death and the future of this umma (Islamic nation) is life,” he said, as hundreds of Hezbollah members gathered to beat their chests in time and walk through the rainy streets of Beirut. Women raised their fists and joined them, shouting Shia cries of: “At your service, O, Hussein!”

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - Sales at supermarkets open for at least one year declined 1.5 pct in March from a year before to 1.128 trln yen, falling for the 15th month in a row, as a sharp drop in temperature during the month hit sales

of spring clothing, the Japan Chain Stores Association said.

Sales have dropped for 36 of the last 37 months. Sales were down 1.6 pct in February.

The figures are based on the combined sales of 83 supermarket chains which together run 8,786

outlets. The data have been adjusted to facilitate comparison on a same-store basis.

Including sales at stores newly opened during the past year, revenue rose 0.4 pct from a year earlier, the second straight monthly increase.

For the full year ended March, supermarket store sales on a same-store basis fell 2.6 pct to 14.022 trln yen, while unadjusted sales dropped 0.9 pct.

The association said supermarket sales last month fell in four of five categories.

Sales of food — the largest category, accounting for 61.1 pct of total revenue — rose 0.5 pct from a year earlier.

Sales of household products — the second-largest category, accounting for 19.7 pct of the total — declined 3.4 pct.

Sales of clothing — the third-largest category, accounting for 12.2 pct of revenue — were down 5.4 pct.

Sales of miscellaneous items — which accounted for 6.5 pct of revenue — dropped 1.5 pct.

Sales of services — which accounted for 0.4 pct of the total — fell 47.7 pct.

(1 usd = 118.60 yen)

kaori.kaneko@xfn.com

kk/mas