Toulon, France - The economic turmoil provoked by crises in the American sub-prime and finance markets has put an end to the free- market economy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday in the southern French city of Toulon.

"Laissez-faire is finished, the all-powerful market that is always right, that's finished," Sarkozy said in a widely anticipated speech, his first in France on the economic crisis.

Tel Aviv/Bethlehem  - Paul McCartney called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Wednesday, as he toured Bethlehem a day before his historic "Friendship First" concert in Tel Aviv.

McCartney, who landed in Israel overnight, used the afternoon to visit the Church of the Nativity - built on the site where according to Christian tradition Jesus was born - in the West Bank city just south of Jerusalem.

Beirut  - A delegation from the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement met Wednesday with anti-Syrian majority leader Saad Hariri at the latter's residence in an effort to end a four-month feud that almost plunged the country into a civil war.

"It was not a meeting of reconciliation - it was a meeting of frankness," Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad told reporters at Hariri's Koraitem mansion.

"We emphasize our commitment to what we agreed in Doha," Raad said, in reference to the accord reached at the Qatari capital more than three months ago.

New York  - Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Wednesday gave the world a view of what his country is like following the successful hosting of the Summer Olympic Games, stressing that it trails 100 countries in per capita income and its rural regions remain underdeveloped.

"Tens of millions of people lack adequate food and clothing," Wen said in his first address to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Nairobi  - A lack of political will has prevented the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights from hearing a single case in the ten years since it was established, campaigners said Wednesday.

A spokesman for Minority Rights Group said that the failure to act came despite major human rights crises in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

Moscow  - Pro-Kremlin lawmaker and former Chechen fighter Ruslan Yamadayev was shot dead in an apparent contract killing in central Moscow on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.

"At 17:20 an unknown man approached the car at the red traffic light, shot Yamadaev and injured the other passenger," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.