U.N. increasing joint aid efforts with Cambodian government to assist flood victims

The U.N. reported Friday "that it is increasing its joint efforts with Cambodian authorities and aid providers to offer food assistance to some of the thousands of people that have been displaced by severe flooding recently," the U.N. News Centre reports. According to the news service, "Some 240,000 people have been displaced by heavy rains and according to the World Food Programme (WFP), 10 percent of the rice crops have been destroyed and 265,000 hectares of rice fields have been damaged, raising the price of rice by 12 percent" (11/4).

"The floods that have affected three-quarters of the country's land area, by the United Nations' estimate, have been overshadowed by similar troubles in Cambodia's larger and wealthier neighbor, Thailand, where the government is scrambling to protect central Bangkok from inundation," the New York Times writes (Fuller, 11/2).