France's far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined together in a historic no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes that forced Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his Cabinet members to resign, a first since 1962. The National Assembly approved the motion by 331 votes. A minimum of 288 were needed. President Emmanuel Macron insisted he will serve the rest of his term until 2027. However, he will need to appoint a new prime minister for the second time after July's legislative elections led to a deeply divided parliament.

A conservative appointed in September, Barnier becomes the shortest-serving prime minister in France's modern Republic. "I can tell you that it will remain an honor for me to have served France and the French with dignity," Barnier said in his final speech before the vote. The National Assembly is deeply fractured, with no single party holding a majority. Barnier was accused of imposing austerity measures and failing to address citizens' needs.

South Korea's president shocked the country on Tuesday night (Dec. 3) when, out of the blue, he declared martial law in the Asian country for the first time in nearly 50 years. Yoon Suk Yeol's drastic decision - announced in a late-night TV broadcast - mentioned "anti-state forces" and the threat from North Korea. But it soon became clear that it had not been spurred by external threats but by his own desperate political troubles.

Still, it prompted thousands of people to gather at parliament in protest, while opposition lawmakers rushed there to push through an emergency vote to remove the measure. Defeated, Yoon emerged a few hours later to accept the parliament's vote and lift the martial law order. Now, lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach him over what the country's main opposition has called his "insurrectionary behaviour". His shock declaration is now being seen as a bid to get the kind of grip on power that has eluded him since he won the presidency in 2022.

Syrian rebels encircled the key central city of Hama "from three sides", a war monitor said, despite a counteroffensive launched by government forces to retain control of the city. Hama is strategically located in central Syria and, for the army of Bashar al-Assad, is crucial to safeguarding the capital and seat of power, Damascus. The fighting around Hama follows a lightning offensive by Islamist-led rebels who in a matter of days wrested swathes of territory, most significantly Syria's second city, Aleppo, from the president's grasp.

The rebels "have surrounded Hama city from three sides, and are now present at a distance of three to four kilometres (1.9 to 2.5 miles) from it", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said the government forces were "left with only one exit towards Homs to the south". In more than a decade of war, Aleppo had never entirely fallen out of government hands.

Bitcoin topped the $100,000 mark as a massive rally in the world's most popular cryptocurrency sparked by the election of Donald Trump rolls on. The milestone comes just hours after the President-elect signaled a lighter regulatory approach to the crypto industry when he said he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to be the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Bitcoin has soared to unprecedented heights since Trump won the election Nov. 5. The cryptocurrency climbed dramatically from $69,374 on Election Day and rose as high as $103,713 on Dec. 4, according to CoinDesk. Just two years ago, bitcoin dropped below $17,000 following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Investors began returning in large numbers as global inflation started to cool - and gains skyrocketed on the anticipation and then early success of spot ETFs, or exchange traded funds, which allow investors to have a stake in bitcoin without directly buying it.