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WASHINGTON — New German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking to improve her country's relations with President Bush, buoyed by an emerging international effort aimed at halting Iran's nuclear program.While Merkel has indicated Germany will not always agree with the United States, her White House meeting today comes on the heels of a decision by European allies to confront Iran — an approach that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed.Their unity was as tight as their disagreement over Iraq was wide when Gerhard Schroeder was Germany's chancellor. An election in September put Merkel at the head of a closely divided coalition government.Schroeder's opposition to the U.S.-led war that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein so divided the German's relationship with Bush that the president refused at times to speak to Schroeder on the telephone.Merkel, by contrast, is more in tune with Bush's conservative politics. Departing for Washington, she said she expected "a first visit that will take place in a friendly atmosphere, one of partnership, and an open one."

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean prosecutors investigating disgraced stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk said today they were barring more of his collaborators from leaving the country.Prosecutors raided eight more offices of Hwang's former associates, a day after they searched Hwang's home in southern Seoul, said Hong Man-pyo, the prosecutor in charge of the criminal investigation.Hwang publicly apologized Thursday for faking data in papers published in 2004 and 2005 that purported to show his team created stem cells from the world's first cloned human embryos. He claimed he was deceived by fellow researchers.During a nationally televised news conference, the scientist once known as the "Pride of Korea," stood by his claims that some of the cloned embryonic stem cells at his lab had been maliciously switched, repeating his call for prosecutors to investigate.By The Associated Press