i am i am. i am i am. this is you know when he was live from berlin a government divided us voters delivered a split decision in the first nationwide verdict on the trump presidency democrats take control of the house with their leader pledging to check the president's power . wanted to help democrats and republicans it's about restoring the constitution jackson downward says to the compliment. voters are also sending a record shattering number of women to congress but republicans increase their majority in the senate so what does this mixed message mean for the second half of

trump's presidency and also coming up onto a miracles hands pick successor officially enters the race to replace the chancellor as head of the c.d.u. party on a grid to comp a combo or also known as a kid is one of three leading contenders for the job but is support for america more likely to help or harm her chances of victory and relief for families in cameroon dozens of kidnapped children have been freed by their captors or get the leaders to form the our correspondent in west africa. or an. i am. now my level rockery to have you along everyone the time has turned in u.s. politics where voters turned out in record numbers and ended the. the republican

party's control of the us federal government in the first nationwide vote since president trumps election two years ago democrats have taken back the house of representatives but it's not quite the blue wave they had hoped for republicans have actually expanded their majority in the senate and defeated strong democratic challengers in some key state governor races so a mixed verdict and a fifty fifty split decision what does the future hold now for this polarized nation first let's take a look at the numbers. here is where things stand at the moment in the house of representatives two hundred and eight hundred seats are needed to take control and as you can see here democrats have already surpassed that goal with some races still to be called and here's how the senate is looking well the lighter shading there representing the seats that were not up for election and on top of that the night's results republicans now at fifty one seats which means they have defended

their majority there while tuesday's voting has was characterized by high turnout in districts across the country it was billed as the most important midterm election in a generation where both sides democrats and republicans energized to cast ballots in support of their candidates i. mean not to be a blue we've but democrats have sent a message to washington i don't win in metropolitan and suburban america has left the party in control of the house of representatives. jubilant democrat leaders said they will rein in the polarizing president. and civilians to morrow will be a new day in america i was a member is feeling you know the power to win was.

is brilliant there are chemicals and republicans it's of their restoring the constitution's jackson down to the champions was. was but it didn't all go to democrats way from tennessee to texas republicans won increasing their control of the senate. one time presidential hopeful ted cruz was among those fending off challenges the. fact is there's already the president hilda results in a tweet calling them a tremendous success. then there is the changing face of u.s. politics the record number of women elected twenty one year old alexandria. becomes the youngest woman ever sent to congress dave holland in new mexico was one

of two native americans to win election shall we stay vid a lesbian was the other. how on earth moment only meanwhile two woman. and omar broke the mold in their campaigns. the first moment because he sent i think in congress. the phrase. limited to what i think the commitment. the first to refugee everything i like to tell congress. the bigger picture do is will flourish gridlock in washington music to the ears of democrats maybe but a headache for trump. and president donald trump is already trying to head off challenges he could face as a result of losing control of the house of representatives democrats now have the

power to open investigations into the president's alleged wrongdoings earlier he tweeted if the democrats think they are going to waste taxpayer money investigating us at the house level then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all the of the leaks of classified information and much else at the senate level two can play that game so the scene is already set for some fiery months ahead all right i'm now joined by robert berry who is with the u.s. term limits in washington d.c. an organization that advocates for term limits at all levels of government says it was established back in the early one nine hundred ninety s. it has helped an act and defend term limits and fifteen state legislators as well as congressional term limits twenty three states a very warm welcome but we fully go to the term limits while the president reach his first term limits in two thousand and twenty because how likely is it now that the democrats have in control of the house that impeachment proceedings could be

launched against him. you know it goes kind of beyond our scope what happens at the presidential level we already have term limits as you said and the president so the likelihood of it appeasement proceeding here i think is is very likely and if it does proceed it's going to be much for for show and for distraction nobody realistically expects any anything like that to transpire all right mr barry if the democrats as we now know flip the house republicans retain expanded their presence in the chamber in the senate despite this power shift there is little that the dems now can do to stop president adama tums nominations for the supreme court these are of course judges appointed for the entirety of their life their lifetime pose does that sit well with you you're advocating for term limits. here you know our advocacy really goes to legislative races so we're primarily focused on elected officials supreme courts or federal judges that have lifetime

ten years are really there are some good reasons why you want lifetime appointments and they don't have political pressure our focus is elected officials and specifically elected officials who are using their incumbency status to fend off challenges that's the main thing and i always like to remind everyone that the other way to look at american politics instead of just looking at the the typical republican and democrat thing consider that we have a really an incumbent party and the party even of a wave election like yesterday still retain about eighty five percent of their seats if you're an incumbent running for reelection you have an eighty five percent chance of being reelected yesterday how exactly would term limits impact u.s. politics as we know them. so it would be you know i think for an international audience it would be barely perceptible the idea is not intended to be a small she was changed it's really instead intended to be

a course correction and the objective of this course correction is to return the legislature even in the united states we have an affinity for what we call the citizen legislature and to the extent that the members become assimilated into the washing thing culturally become detached from their voters back home and so you have a new specialty developed and that is they have of career politician that is antithetical to the american sensibility and something that we intend to change the term limits mr barry i only have fifteen seconds left to do i hear you want to drain the swamp as well. we want to drain the swamp to the extent that we get more citizens in the legislature and less fewer professional politicians robert berry from our washington studio thank you sir for weighing in thank you. now back here in germany one of america's closest allies has officially launched her campaign to lead the chancellor's conservative c.d.u.

party merkel announced last week that she was stepping down from the job as party leader man whoever succeeds her will be well positioned to become germany's next chancellor on a grant qanbar were also known as a k k is seen as the most centrist of the three main candidates vying for that role . she is uncle america anointed successor. and it was the chancellor's legacy that and the great crime carabao on that first in his speech is just as in the. this is the end of an era in which there are many personal relationships as many personal experiences that i connect with angle of magical. but this is also the end of an era that has changed and shaped the seaview year in a very special and lasting way in the big. come car about was state premier of zala and before i'm going to medical brought her to

belin as secretary general of the c.d.u. in that position crown carabao has effectively been merkel's right hand woman but with many in the party disillusioned with merkel and her governing coalition her challenge will be to step out of merkel's shadow and shop and her own profile. today she said it was time to open a new chapter. yet she refused to criticize the chancellor's controversial immigration policy saying the challenge now is to find solutions. yet when somebody knocks on our door and we take the men and give them protection if they then abuse that protection to commit crimes here how should we deal with that and those are the questions that people expect answers to but they don't text back to us to discuss three years later whether what happened in two thousand and fifteen was right or wrong without. america's refugee

policy has come under heavy criticism not least from one of crumb carbo's contenders for the party leadership and spawn who currently serves as health minister in her cabinet met with c.d.u. members in north rhine-westphalia on tuesday along with mats who is also standing. both are seen as more conservative than the chancellor and have vowed to move the c.d.u. to the right the new leader will be a that today at a party conference a missed seventh of december. while the decision by angela merkel to step down as leader of a party has up the pressure on her controversial bavarian ally or say offer to follow suit while today so spokesman said the c.s.u. leader had not yet made a decision this after the german weekly did cite reported that say offer would step down as leader of the c.s.u. party but stay on as interior minister while pressure on say offer to step down as

c.s.u. leader has been mounting after the party's poor showing in bavarian elections last month. now in cameroon seventy nine boarding school students who were taken hostage by separatists have been released reports say the kidnappers are still holding three adult hostages from the school the children aged between eleven and seventeen were seized early monday morning in the mendham the capital of the north west region no single group says it carried out the kidnapping but separatist militias have been calling for a school boycott. and the earlier we spoke to our west africa correspondent major increase in lagos nigeria he recently was in cameroon to work cover the presidential elections there he told us how schoolchildren have become targets in the regional separatist conflict. most of the schools in the region have been closed for more than two years now after pressure from the separatists they've been trying to force schools parents and kids not to go to school for two reasons one

they want to force the government to get back to the negotiation table and the second point is they don't want the kids to go through the french speaking school system and that has led to a situation whereby for two years now most of the kids in the entire region haven't been able to go to school this actually shows that this separatist might be behind it to send a message to those remaining schools to close down but it is not clear because there's about ten separatist groups active in this region and none of them has declared responsibility and some of them even also said this is not right that this has happened so this has sparked a lot of debate in cameroon some people even argue that the governments might be behind the abduction to justify the force they're using against separatists and civilians in the region remember there's been a lot of reports on human rights abuses by the armed forces of cameroon in the past months but to be honest with you it's very difficult to find out the truth from this region it's not easy for journalists to get there i was there last month during the election right now the authorities don't give any cretaceous for

international journalists to get there and local journalists are not free to report under a very repressive regime of paul beyond what's been running the country for thirty six years now and that was. correspondent speaking to us from lagos in nigeria on little rock n roll and i'll see you then at the top of the hour.