World Notes CAMBODIA

The mere fact that the foreign ministers of some 20 countries, including the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., are gathered in Paris this week to try to end ten years of war in Cambodia constitutes something of a breakthrough. Only a few days before the conference opened, a parley among the four warring Cambodian factions broke down just hours after it began. The talks were resumed by the factions -- the country's Vietnamese-backed government, represented by Prime Minister Hun Sen, and a resistance coalition that includes two non-Communist groups under Prince Norodom Sihanouk andnationalist leader Son Sann, as well as the Khmer Rouge -- only after they finally agreed to sit together at this ^ week's conference under the single name Cambodia.

As the verbal sparring in France heated up, so did the fighting in Cambodia. Vietnamese artillery units stepped up shelling of rebel positions along the Thai border. Viet Nam's objective: to make it harder for opposition troops to attack the Phnom Penh regime after Hanoi pulls out its forces in September.