WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

For years the Sangin District in southern Afghanistan has been one of the deadliest areas of operation. For the British, who controlled the area until U.S.

I don't know how it got to this point, but in my small Tennessee hometown, deer are totally out of control. They wander front yards and side streets as if you are inconveniencing them.

A few miles outside of Port-au-Prince is a government-established camp for displaced people -- Camp Corail, the only "official" camp in Haiti. Rows and rows of neatly-spaced tents provide shelter for thousands of people. But just past Corail, a more "organic" community has sprouted.

According to the UN Population Division, you will have seven billion cohabitants on the planet by the end of this year. It is also projected that by 2045, the global population could reach nine billion.

The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar is often overshadowed by its neighbors. But the country is gaining its own reputation -- as a player in the art world.Qatar is on an ambitious construction schedule to build some half-dozen museums by 2016.

One of the more iconic images to come out of Afghanistan this year is not your average war photograph. It shows a small doll's foot sticking out of an American private's vest. A friend gave it to him after surviving a combat tour in Iraq -- attributing survival to the "lucky foot."

If there's one thing Mark Craig never did, it was hit "erase" on his answering machine. "What's an answering machine," you ask?