17/03/2012 BBC Weekend News

The Chancellor seems to think so and when he opens his red box on

budget day is expected to say that local factors like the cost of

living and how much private sector companies pay should be taken into

account. But it's not popular among trade unionists. We are very, very

angry about this. What George Osborne's effectively saying is

that he wants nurses, care workers, hospital cleaners, who live in the

Midlands and the north of the country to take a pay cut to fund

his 50p tax cut for millionaires living in the south of the country,

it's the politics of division and it shows that the Tories really are

the nasty party. Independent review bodies will recommend whether local

pay deals should apply to teachers and other public sector workers

when they report back to the Government in July but alongside

Wednesday's Budget the Treasury is expected to publish research that

claims public sector workers earn on average 8% more than those in

comparable jobs in the private sector. The gap is 18% in Wales,

13% in Yorkshire, the Humber and the east of England and 0.5% in the

south-east of England. It is odd that in the public sector

you earn a different amount relative to costs of living and the

private sector in different parts of the country. That has an effect

on the economy, an effect on the quality of public services. Up to

160,000 civil servants could be affected if local pay deals are

introduced this year. The soldier accused of killing 16

Afghan civilians last last weekend has been named as Staff Sergeant

Robert Bales, 38. He is being held in a military prison in Kansas.

A On Friday he was transferred from Kuwait to Kansas, the military's

maximum security prison where charges will be filed and where, in

time, prosecuters will indicate whether they'll seek the death

penalty. The Afghan President has already

raised the temperature, after meeting relatives of the dead,

Hamid Karzai accused Washington of not sharing information and he

appeared to echo the suspicions of villagers that more than one US

soldiers had been involved. story of the village elders is

entirely different. They believe it is not possible for one person to

do that. That American officials deny, but

they have not denied that Robert Bales was the soldier who went

missing last last Sunday when 16 people were shot dead, including

nine children. President Karzai has also

questioned US tactics, he says American soldiers should be pulled

back from Afghan villages, and end all night raids. In response, the

White House says it will discuss those issues as the administration

remains firmly in damage limitation mode.