Editor's note

At just 14 years old, multilingual Adul Sam-on acted as translator during the elaborate mission to rescue him and 12 others from the Tham Luang cave complex in Thailand last week. Now, the Thai government is considering granting citizenship to Adul, and the three other stateless members of the group. Derina Johnson interviewed some of the 400,000 stateless people living in Thailand and found that bravery, positivity and resilience are common characteristics.

Spain is confronting a dark period of its history. Last month, a retired doctor went on trial, accused of taking a new born baby away from its mother without her consent and giving it to a childless couple. The same thing may have happened to as many as 300,000 children during and after Franco’s regime. Federico López-Terra says it is high time this scandal was put in the spotlight.

You may think globalised food markets are a recent thing, but people have been transporting crops all over the world for thousands of years. Take the banana. Chris Hunt and Rathnasiri Premathilake have discovered evidence that domesticated bananas were propagated in Sri Lanka 6,000 years ago, meaning people must have carried plants there across the ocean.

Football fans sent hundreds of millions of tweets throughout Russia 2018. Alex Fenton and Simon Chadwick have analysed Twitter during the World Cup and found evidence of marketing bots, organised trolling – and increasingly influential female fans.

Emily Lindsay Brown

Editor for Cities and Young People

Top stories

Adul Sam-on (right) during the rescue operation. Handout: Thai Navy Seals.

Adul Sam-on: the stateless boy who survived the Thai cave – and helped with the rescue

Derina Johnson, Trinity College Dublin

There are at least 400,000 stateless people living in Thailand – many of them young, like Adul. Here's what their lives are like.

“Human rights for stolen babies.” EPA/CHEMA MOYA

The 'stolen babies' trial in Spain finally shines a light on a scandal that cannot be forgotten

Federico López-Terra, Swansea University

As many as 300,000 babies were taken from their families for political gain.

shutterstock.

Prehistoric people started to spread domesticated bananas across the world 6,000 years ago

Chris Hunt, Liverpool John Moores University; Rathnasiri Premathilake, University of Kelaniya

Appearance of bananas in Sri Lanka 6,000 years ago points to prehistoric food globalisation.

John Walton/PA

The World Cup in digital and social: the viewers, the tweets and the trolls

Alex Fenton, University of Salford; Simon Chadwick, University of Salford

Fans are shifting their consumption of the World Cup online.

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