for more on what's being discussed at the finance ministers, let's cross now to cnn's diana magnay. erms of the financial transaction tax, let's just start with that. are the germans pushing hard for that, diana? >> yes. the german finance minister has written a letter together with eight other eu finance ministers to the dames who hold the eu presidency at the moment requesting that this financial transaction tax be put through. and they want it, of course, on an eu 27 or 227-member state level. as you've just said, britain and sweden really aren't up for that. britain, especially, the cause of london being such a financial hub and obviously then bearing the burden of a tax at which will be extremely damaging to the british economy. this is something that ill with be discussed, willing on the table today. but probably no real headway will be made on it until the eu summit at the end of march, charles. >> okay, now let's look at spain. i can imagine there have been some eyebrows raised in berlin about the whole idea of the spanish asking for some lee way, asking to be cut some slack

diana magnay in toulouse, france. are some signs, some signs of improvement. >> some, some, she says, with a high voice. >> please, please. is it real this time? >> i was watching this yesterday and i thought, oh -- >> in 2008 people said we're at the bottom of the housing market. no. 2010 we have this home buyer tax credit. now this is the bottom of the housing market. no. it's 2012 and people are saying it's stabilizing. the howing market is stabilizing. i hope they're right. have you heard this phrase green shoots? >> no. >> when a seed comes out of the ground and it starts to sprout? it doesn't mean it's healthy and vibrant but it's stable and there's a green shoot coming out. existing home sales are actually up. people are buying more homes this year than they did the same month last year and home prices stopped falling year over year. the median price of an existing home, $156,000, $600, i think that's well off where it was in 2007. it's not falling, at least, year over year. there's also this big argument that

from germany, diana magnay has more. >> reporter: it's a strange looking currency, more like a lunch than cash. one ki in. go is worth as much as a euro, much more to the local community. this commons bagger sells mostly local things in her store, much of it bought and sold here. >> it encourages you to think about where you buy your produce from. products like this cheese, half mare, half goats milk, made half an hour down the road at this farm, from mare's bread specialty for their milk. >> it means the money we use in the region stays in the region, the farmer tells me. >> reporter: it will cost you. it devalues every three months and costs 2% to extend the note. this man who came up with the idea that says that's to keep money and, therefore, goods changing hands. >> the reason is that money shouldn't be horded. it's not speculation object. but it's medium exchange, media of exchange and because of that we want that. >> reporter: this economist who wrote a report for the bundesbank says they only work in regions where consumers can afford them. >> this is the traditional argument

our diana magnay is live in toulouse, france right now. this sounds like such a developing situation, diane. maybe you could get me up to speed on exactly where we stand right now in this situation. >> reporter: sure, ashleigh. this is the seventh hour of this operation. as you said, 300 police involved in this. after an unprecedented manhunt, really to find who people were considering a serial killer. it's a fairly fluid situation. you have police coming up and down this road all the time. the interior minister has been here overnight and police officers have been in negotiations with this 24-year-old suspect through his door. we heard from the mayor earlier that he was being uncooperative, very stubborn and very determined. then we heard this development that he'd thrown a gun out of the window and said that he would surrender himself in a couple of hours time at 12 noon local. so the interior minister says he certainly hopes that will be the case. police do, however, presume that he is heavily armed. he is capable of carrying out more a

diana magnay is live in toulouse, france, this morning. r: hi, sol dad. it was very dramatic a couple of hours ago. we've been waiting for this siege to end for more than 30 hours. 32 hours i think it is now. and then suddenly earlier this morning, a couple hours ago, two minutes of sustained gun fire. we, the press, have been kept, you know, fairly far away from the actual site. we could hear it but couldn't see it. we found out from the interior minister what had gone on. the elite raid unit had gone in and blown open the door. gone in through a window. they got some sort of video surveillance equipment that they have been using to try and find out where he was prior to going in. they couldn't see him anywhere. they thought only place he could be was in the bathroom. he came out of the bathroom shooting extremely violently. the guy who led the operation who is a specialist in this kind of thing says he had never seen such a violent reaction. and then mohammad merah, this 24-year-old al qaeda self-declared al qaeda affiliate jumped out of

diana magnay joins us from toulouse with the latest. this standoff has been going on for three hours now at the very least. is there a sense they're making any headway? >> reporter: well, we've just heard from the mayor, actually, who's been talking to police right outside the house, just up the road from this residential neighborhood, just a few kilometers from that jewish school. the suspect, the 24-year-old man, holed up in that house is extremely stubborn and determined. he's talking to negotiators but he is by no means in negotiations with them. the man said that it is likely to go on for quite a long time. we are beginning to get more and more details about this man. we know he is 24 years old, a french national of algerian origin. he spent considerable amount of time apparently in afghanistan and pakistan and he belongs to a jihadist group which translates as the knights of glory, which makes a little more sense as to why he should have attacked those soldiers and killed three soldiers last week. they had served in afghanistan. w

diana magnay is at the scene of this tense standoff. where do things stand now, diana?12th hour. it started at 3:00 a.m. this morning. some very heavy gunfire was exchanged, which involved two policemen being injured. at one point the suspect did actually say that he would hand himself over to police. but he hasn't done that. police say that he still has weapons with him. he also told them that he had a car full of weapons close by the house, which they also found to be true. all the information we're getting about the raid, we're getting from the interior ministry. the interior minister was here for much of the night. nicolas sarkozy came and just left, he came to the site to find out how the operation was going on. and the suspect is being in talks with the hundreds of police who are here. there are 50 police surrounding the house, about 300 police involved in the operation. he's a 23-year-old french national of algerian origin. he's been in pakistan and afghanistan on several occasions. he describes himself as a jihadist, affiliated with al qaeda. and he says that he

diana magnay, cnn, toulouse. >> thank you.y file." >>> the question this hour is rick santorum suddenly doing himself in? mack in michigan writes santorum knows he's not going to win the presidency and knows as a loser he can join sarah palin making huge money on the hate, paranoia and holier than thou speaking circuit, wrapping one's behind in the flag, waving the bible and too tooing the majority is a big money business in this count country. dave writes he panders to the uneducated and ignorant and will only favor the rich like the rest of his hypocritical party. the uneducated and ignorant will continue to vote against their own best interests based on a few slogans and a deep hatred for the black man who is president. curtis says no one here in pennsylvania is surprised. after all he did lose his re-election bid for the senate in 2006 by 18 percentage points. john writes he needs to stick to the economy. he needs to get his views out of our bedrooms and explain how we'll get our troops out of afghanistan sooner. the conse

let's go straight to diana magnay on the ground there in toulouse. t now? >> reporter: fredricka, this siege has been going on for more than 12 hours now. as you say, there was an exchange of gunfire earlier in the morning, two policemen wounded in that. it all began at 3:00 a.m. there has been some very strange patterns really over the course of the day. the police have been in contact with the suspect. at one point he threw a gun out of the window and said he would hand himself in at midday. but that deadline passed and he didn't appear. then negotiations were broken off with police at one point. police tried to bring his mother to try and talk him out of the house. but he wouldn't come out. and now negotiations are back on, but the police say the suspect remains very stubborn, very determined, and they say that they cannot continue -- they would rather not continue on this sort of modus operandi once night falls. as you can imagine, everyone in this neighborhood very worried, police say that he is armed. he has an uzi with him. a dangerous man of t

cnn's diana magnay on the phone from toulouse. what is the latest on the investigation? >> reporter: the latest is this chilling new detail that you mentioned that the gunman had a camera attached to his chest with straps. this idea that he was recording what he was doing as he gunned down those children. he got close enough to really shoot them at point blank range in the back of the head. the youngest as young as 3. the daughter of the director of the school who died in the director's arms and a rabbi, a teacher at this school and his two sons. apparently according to eyewitnesses the man was able to spend really quite a few minutes standing there shooting and making his escape on his scooter and the interior minister said in that interview they were following various leads, one of which was checking to see whether there were any sort of leads amongst neo-nazi paratroopers. there are links, you see, between this shooting and two other shootings in the toulouse area in the last ten days, a gunman on a black scooter using apparently the same .45 semiautomatic pistol kill

>> hold on for a moment because diana magnay is on the scene in toulouse right now. . what is happening right now? update our viewers, diana. >> reporter: hi, wolf. it's difficult to say what is happening right now, but we have been talking to one of the toulouse police spokesman and he's been walking us through the steps of the raid, and a nighttime operation the lights will go off and then police will flood the area with lights and throw in some kind of stun gun, a stun grenade and then move in and the lights have been off for some time now so we can only assume given the extensive police, but the police are trying to do something fairly soon. he may hand himself over and that doesn't seem to have happened and the operation like this becomes much more complicated at northeast and we hope to bring it to a conclusion. we were at some point in the next few hours, wolf? >> we are seeing flashing lights go off and these are live pictures into "the situation room" from toulouse, france. in the darkness you can see some lights going on, and right now we have no idea as you

in toulouse diana magnay, we heard about this time they were expecting the suspect inside the house wouldng out, turning himself over to police. where does that stand? >> reporter: absolutely. that's what the suspect said that he would do. he's been talking to police. they said he was extremely determined, extremely stubborn not exactly a negotiating position really but apparently he said he would come out at midday. it's midday now and we haven't heard anything. there are around 50 police surrounding the house, 300 police all in all, taking part in this huge operation, the culmination of a manhunt, which has been ongoing really since that first killing ten days ago. now, this man is 24-year-old, hold up in a building up the road, told authorities is he responsible for the killings of three soldiers last week and for the killings of these jewish children on monday in revenge for the death of palestinian children, he said. he has apparently spent significant time in pakistan and afghanistan and says he's linked to al qaeda and right now, soledad, apparently the police are able to track his