Donald Trump's Middle East envoy has traveled to Qatar and Israel to kickstart the U.S. president-elect's diplomatic push to help reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal before he takes office on Jan. 20, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters.

Steve Witkoff, who will officially take up the position under Trump's administration, met separately in late November with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the source said.

Witkoff’s conversations appear aimed at building on nearly 14 months of unsuccessful diplomacy by the Biden administration, Qatar and Egypt aimed at a lasting ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hamas in Gaza and the release of dozens of Israeli hostages held in the enclave.

The meetings also signal that the Gulf state of Qatar has resumed as a key mediator after suspending its role last month, the source said.

The source added that Hamas negotiators would likely return to the Qatari capital Doha for more talks soon.

Biden's aides have been aware of Witkoff's contacts with Israeli, Qatari and other Middle East officials and understand that Trump's envoy supports a Gaza deal along the lines the administration has been pursuing, a U.S. official said.

The Biden administration, rather than Witkoff, retains the U.S. lead in efforts to revive negotiations towards a ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials in Cairo on Sunday.

President Joe Biden's team has kept the Trump camp updated, but the two sides have not worked together directly, the U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Biden administration does not see a need to coordinate with Witkoff because it regards his discussions with regional players as largely an effort to learn the issues rather than negotiations, the official said.

Trump's transition team and representatives for Witkoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the meetings.

Trump warned on Monday there would be "hell to pay" in the Middle East if hostages held in the Gaza Strip were not released prior to his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Witkoff is a real estate investor and Trump campaign donor with business ties to Qatar and other Gulf states, but he has no prior diplomatic experience.

He met Sheikh Mohammed, who also serves as foreign minister, in Doha on Nov 22.

"Both agreed a Gaza ceasefire is needed before Trump's inauguration so that once the Trump administration takes office it can move onto other issues, like stabilizing Gaza and the region," said the source, who was briefed on Witkoff's meetings and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Witkoff met Netanyahu in Israel on Nov 23.

Qatar's foreign ministry and the Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Witkoff also met families of Israeli hostages, an Israeli official told Reuters.

He "spoke with them about Team Trump's efforts to try and broker the deal before inauguration," the official said.

Sheikh Mohammed traveled to Vienna on Nov. 24 to meet the director of Israel's Mossad spy agency David Barnea, who has led Israel's talks with Qatar over the last 14 months.

"There are plans for a subsequent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas to take place potentially in Doha soon, but no specific date has been set," the source said.

Hamas' negotiating team left Doha in recent weeks, Qatari officials said, after Washington objected to their presence. That followed Hamas' rejection of a short-term ceasefire proposal after talks in mid-October.

The source said the Hamas' negotiators were likely to return to Doha for new talks.

Speaking about Trump's warning on Monday there would be "hell to pay" if hostages in Gaza were not released by his inauguration, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Reuters on Wednesday his comment was a "powerful reflection" of the urgency for a ceasefire and hostage deal among both Trump's Republicans and Biden's Democrats.

"We're going to pursue every avenue we can in the time that we have left to try to get the hostages back and to get a ceasefire. And I think the president-elect's statement reinforces that," Blinken said.

French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government on Wednesday, throwing the European Union's second-biggest economic power deeper into a crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and tame a massive budget deficit.

Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier, with a majority 331 votes in support of the motion, Reuters reported.

Barnier now has to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron, making his minority government's three-month tenure the shortest lived in France's Fifth Republic beginning in 1958. He is expected to do so on Thursday morning, French media reported.

The hard left and far right punished Barnier for using special constitutional powers to adopt part of an unpopular budget without a final vote in parliament, where it lacked majority support. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63.07 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.

"This (deficit) reality will not disappear by the magic of a motion of censure," Barnier told lawmakers ahead of the vote, adding the budget deficit would come back to haunt whichever government comes next.

No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou's in 1962. Macron ushered in the crisis by calling a snap election in June that delivered a polarised parliament.

With its president diminished, France now risks ending the year without a stable government or a 2025 budget, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a U.S.-style government shutdown.

France's political turmoil will further weaken a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany's coalition government, and weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

The country's outgoing defence minister Sebastien Lecornu warned the turmoil could impact French support for Ukraine.

The hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party demanded Macron's resignation.

Barnier's demise was cheered by far-right chief Marine Le Pen, who has sought for years to portray her National Rally party as a government in waiting.

"I'm not pushing for Macron's resignation," she said. "The pressure on the president will get greater and greater. Only he will make that decision."

NO EASY EXIT FROM FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS

France now faces a period of deep political uncertainty that is already unnerving investors in French sovereign bonds and stocks. Earlier this week, France's borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece, generally considered far more risky.

Macron must now make a choice. The Elysee Palace said the president would address the nation on Thursday evening.

Three sources told Reuters that Macron aimed to install a new prime minister swiftly, with one saying he wanted to name a premier before a ceremony to reopen the Notre-Dame Cathedral on Saturday, which Trump is due to attend.

Any new prime minister would face the same challenges as Barnier in getting bills, including the 2025 budget, adopted by a divided parliament. There can be no new parliamentary election before July.

Macron could alternatively ask Barnier and his ministers to stay on in a caretaker capacity while he takes time to identify a prime minister able to attract sufficient cross-party support to pass legislation.

A caretaker government could either propose emergency legislation to roll the tax-and-spend provisions in the 2024 budget into next year, or invoke special powers to pass the draft 2025 budget by decree - though jurists say this is a legal grey area and the political cost would be huge.

Macron's opponents also could vote down one prime minister after the next.

ECONOMIC PAIN

The upheaval is not without risk for Le Pen.

Macron allies sought to present her as an agent of chaos after her party joined forces with the left to down Barnier.

"The French will harshly judge the choice you are going to make," Laurent Wauquiez, a lawmaker from the conservative Les Republicains party who backs Macron, told Le Pen in parliament.

Since Macron called the summer snap election, France's CAC 40 benchmark stock market index has dropped nearly 10% and is the heaviest loser among top EU economies.

The euro EUR=EBS showed little immediate reaction versus the dollar, trading for around $1.05 per euro, but dipping against other European currencies, such as the Swiss franc and the pound .

"I’m amazed the euro hasn’t moved much," said Nick Rees, senior foreign exchange market analyst at Monex Europe. "There are two major powers in Europe, France and Germany, both of which right now are emasculated.”

Barnier's draft budget had sought to cut the fiscal deficit from a projected 6% of national output this year to 5% in 2025. Voting down his government would be catastrophic for state finances, he had said.

Le Pen shrugged off the warning. She said her party would support any eventual emergency law that rolls over the 2024 budget's tax-and-spend provisions into next year to ensure there is stopgap financing.

($1 = 0.9513 euro)

South Korean lawmakers on Wednesday called for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol after he declared martial law only to reverse the move hours later, triggering the biggest political crisis in decades in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

The surprise declaration late on Tuesday ignited a standoff with parliament which rejected his attempt to ban political activity and censor the media, as armed troops forced their way into the National Assembly building in Seoul, Reuters reported.

A coalition of lawmakers from opposition parties said they planned to propose a bill to impeach Yoon on Wednesday which should be voted within 72 hours.

“The parliament should focus on immediately suspending the president’s business to pass an impeachment bill soonest,” Hwang Un-ha, one of the MPs in the coalition, told reporters.

The leader of Yoon's ruling People Power Party called for Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun to be fired and the entire cabinet to resign.

Yoon told the nation in a TV address late on Tuesday that martial law was needed to defend the country from nuclear-armed North Korea and pro-North anti-state forces, and protect its free constitutional order, although he cited no specific threats.

Chaotic scenes ensued as helmeted troops climbed into the parliament building through smashed windows and military helicopters hovered overhead. Parliamentary aides sprayed fire extinguishers to push the soldiers back, and protesters scuffled with police outside.

The military said activities by parliament and political parties would be banned, and that media and publishers would be under the control of the martial law command.

But within hours of the declaration, South Korea's parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, unanimously passed a motion requiring martial law be lifted, including all 18 members present from Yoon's party. 

The president then rescinded the declaration.

Protesters outside the National Assembly shouted and clapped. “We won!” they chanted, and one demonstrator banged on a drum.

More protests are expected on Wednesday with South Korea's largest union coalition, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, planning to hold a rally in Seoul and vowing to strike until Yoon resigns.

The U.S. embassy urged U.S. citizens in South Korea to avoid areas where protests were taking place.