Maya Alleruzzo / AP

This Wednesday, March 13, 2013, photo shows a general view of Firdous Square at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Jerome Delay as the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003. Ten years ago on live television, U.S. Marines memorably hauled down a Soviet-style statue of Saddam, symbolically ending his rule. Today, that pedestal in central Baghdad stands empty. Bent iron beams sprout from the top, and posters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in military fatigues are pasted on the sides.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

In this Friday, March 15, 2013, photo, a woman and her child look at a camel at the Baghdad Zoo as Abdullah, 8, poses with a photograph taken on July 20, 2003, at the same site by Niko Price of the Associated Press, showing a U.S. soldier visiting the newly opened zoo. The zoo was decimated during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, when the staff fled and looters gutted the zoo and the park surrounding it. Only a handful of animals survived, and later the grounds were used as a holding facility for looters detained by U.S. soldiers. The zoo reopened in July 2003 after being rehabilitated under the care of U.S. Army Capt. William Sumner and South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony. Today, it houses more than 1,000 animals and is a popular destination for families.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

In this Saturday, March 16, 2013 photo, shoppers walk in Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada, at the same site of an Associated Press photo taken by Hadi Mizban on Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 after a bombing that killed 22 people. Bloody attacks launched by terrorists who thrived in the post-invasion chaos are painfully still frequent, albeit less so than a few years back, and sectarian and ethnic rivalries are again tearing at the fabric of national unity.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

This Tuesday, March 12, 2013, photo shows a general view of Abu Nawas Park in Baghdad, at the site of a photograph taken by Maya Alleruzzo showing Iraqi orphans playing soccer with a U.S. soldier from the Third Infantry Division in April 2003. The park, which runs along Abu Nawas Street, named after an Arabic poet, is now a popular destination for families who are drawn by the manicured gardens, playgrounds and restaurants famous for a fish called mazgouf. Ten years ago, the park was home to a tribe of children orphaned by the war and was rife with crime.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

This Thursday, March 14, 2013, photo shows a general view of the crossed swords monument at the site of an Associated Press photograph by Karim Kadim of U.S. soldiers taken on Nov. 16, 2008. The crossed sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq's nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the arches in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

In this Saturday, March 16, 2013, photo, motorists fill the main street in Baghdad's busy shopping district of Karrada at the site of an Associated Press photo taken by Hadi Mizban on Friday, March 7, 2008, after a bombing that killed 53 people and wounded 130. Bloody attacks launched by terrorists who thrived in the post-invasion chaos are painfully still frequent, albeit less so than a few years back, and sectarian and ethnic rivalries are again tearing at the fabric of national unity.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

This Tuesday, March 12, 2013, photo shows a general view of Abu Nawas Street in Baghdad, Iraq, at the site of a photograph of Iraqi orphan Fady al-Sadik waking on the street taken by photographer Maya Alleruzzo in April 2003. The street abuts the well-manicured Abu Nawas Park, popular with families.

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GRAPHIC WARNING: Contains images which some viewers may find disturbing. 

Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP - Getty Images

A member of the Somali security forces flees the site of a car bomb in central Mogadishu, Somalia, on March 18, 2013.

Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP - Getty Images

A woman reacts near the site of a car bomb in central Mogadishu on March 18, 2013.

Reuters reports — A car bomb exploded near the presidential palace in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Monday, killing at least 10 people in a blast that appeared to target senior government officials, police said.

The suicide attacker detonated explosives while driving along a boulevard that runs between the palace and the national theatre, a route lined by tearooms that were engulfed in fire moments after the blast, senior police officer Abdiqadir Mohamud said. A public minibus driving along the road burst into flames.

"The suicide car bomber targeted a senior national security officer whose car was passing near the theatre," Mohamud told Reuters. "Most of the people who died were on board the minibus - civilians. This public vehicle coincidentally came between the government car and the car bomb when it was hit." Read the full story.

Feisal Omar / Reuters

An injured man sits on the road near the presidential palace in Mogadishu on March 18, 2013.

Dar Yasin / AP

Indian policemen take cover during a gunbattle in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, on March 13, 2013. A team of militants stormed a paramilitary camp Wednesday morning, leaving five soldiers and two militants dead, a police official said.

Dar Yasin / AP

Indian policemen and paramilitary soldiers react during a gunbattle in Srinagar on March 13, 2013.

Reuters reports — Two militants hiding automatic rifles and grenades in cricket equipment opened fire on a paramilitary camp on the Indian side of Kashmir on Wednesday, killing five Indian personnel and wounding five, police said.

The militants were killed in a gunfight at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) base just outside the restive city of Srinagar, which has been under curfew for much of the last few weeks following protests and clashes with police.

Local media reports said that Hizbul Mujahideen, the bitterly disputed region's largest militant group, had claimed responsibility for the attack, in which three civilians were also wounded.

Police said the gunmen approached the camp by mingling with children playing cricket in a nearby field, hiding their weapons in the cricket gear they were carrying. Once at the camp, they shot a sentry dead and then fired indiscriminately into the base. Read the full story.

EPA

Indian paramilitary soldiers carry a wounded colleague on March 13, 2013.

Charly Triballeau / AFP - Getty Images

A woman walks on a snowy road in Caen, northwestern France, during a heavy snowstorm on March 12, 2013. Overnight Monday nearly 500 cars were blocked near Cherbourg, where snowdrifts piled up almost two feet as winds reached more than 60 miles an hour.

Pascal Rossignol / Reuters

A man shovels snow off his car in Cambrai, northern France, on March 12, 2013.

Nicolas Armer / EPA

A snowplow removes snow at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 12, 2013. Over 200 flights were cancelled as bad weather hampered efforts by snow sweepers to clear runways and prevented airline crews from reaching work on time.

Reuters reports — An overnight snowstorm in northwestern Europe forced the closure of Frankfurt Airport, caused record traffic jams in Belgium, and left British and French drivers sleeping in their cars. 

Take-offs and landings at Europe's third-busiest airport were halted at around noon on Tuesday to clear snow from the runways. It was set to reopen at around 8.30 a.m. ET.

The high-speed Eurostar train service connecting London with the French and Belgian capitals and the Thalys line linking Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Cologne in Germany were both suspended. Read the full story.

Charly Triballeau / AFP - Getty Images

Firefighters rescue a driver who slid from a roadside during a heavy snowstorm in Caen, northwestern France, on March 12, 2013.

Pascal Rossignol / Reuters

Firefighters evacuate a man in Cambrai, northern France, on March 12, 2013 as winter weather with snow and freezing temperatures returns to the region.

Ian Langsdon / EPA

A pedestrian braves heavy snowfall on the snow-covered Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on March 12, 2013.

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Police officers stand near an empty defendant's cage in a courtroom in Moscow on March 11, 2013. The court postponed the trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a dead lawyer who accused law-enforcement authorities of massive corruption and whose case sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow.

Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters

Flowers lie near the grave of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in Moscow on March 11, 2013.

Journalists crowded into a packed Moscow courtroom on Monday to witness a legal first: the first prosecution of a dead person in Russian history. But the case was postponed as the absence of defendant Sergei Magnitsky — who died in 2009 — was compounded by the non-appearance of his legal team.

Magnitsky is charged with tax evasion and fraud — similar to accusations that he had leveled against police and tax officials — in a case that sparked a dispute between Washington and Moscow when Congress passed a law named after Magnitsky.

"The defense team ... believes that they have not yet fully acquainted themselves with the 60 volumes of case materials,"  Judge Igor Alisov said, looking down on the barred cage usually reserved for the accused and the empty seats where Magnitsky's lawyers should have sat. Alisov postponed the trial until March 22.

-- Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Franck Robichon / EPA

Wearing white protective masks and suits, Yuzo Mihara, left, and his wife Yuko pose for photographs on a deserted street in the town of Namie, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on Feb. 22, 2013.

Franck Robichon / EPA

A single house remains standing in an area wiped out by the tsunami near Ukedo port in the town of Namie.

Until two years ago, Yuzo Mihara and his wife Yuko lived quietly in the Japanese town of Namie. Yuzo ran a store and Yuko a beauty salon. But their lives were upended on March 11, 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami crippled the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

Yuzo and Yuko are now among over 100,000 Japanese 'nuclear refugees', having had to abandon their home when the town was evacuated due to the nuclear alert.

European PressPhoto Agency photographer Franck Robichon followed the couple as they made a brief visit to their old home last month. They were able to collect a few belongings and clean the house, which had been invaded by mice.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuko Mihara enters her house, where the floor is littered with books and furniture.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuko Mihara offers prayers to her ancestors in front of a family Buddhist altar inside her house.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuko Mihara cleans her kitchen, which is covered with debris and putrefied food.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuzo Mihara cleans the couple's house, which has been invaded by mice.

Located within the 20-kilometer exclusion zone, Namie saw its coastal area wiped out by the tsunami and its inland zone contaminated by radiation. Most of the town's 21,000 former residents still hope to make a permanent move back in the future, but for now they are only allowed to return for a few hours to minimize their exposure to radiation.

Wearing white protective masks and suits, former Namie residents have to drive through Okuma and Futaba, towns where the radiation levels are so high that a future return is inconceivable. 

Most of the former residents of the exclusion zone are still waiting for proper compensation to be negotiated with the government and TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima plant. Two years have passed since the disaster and frustration is gaining ground in the community. Cloistered in cramped temporary accommodation, the evacuees face an uncertain future. The stigma of being seen as 'assisted persons' by the wider community only adds to their despair.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuzo Mihara carries garbage out of his house.

Franck Robichon / EPA

Yuzo Mihara looks at a collapsed house in his neighborhood.

Franck Robichon / EPA

A destroyed house in the abandoned town of Namie.

Related:

Fukushima: Before, during and after

Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone

Slideshow: Triple tragedy for Japan

Ciro Fusco / EPA

View of a huge fire at the 'City of Science' in Naples, Italy, on March 4.

Ciro Fusco / EPA

View of a huge fire at the 'City of Science' in Naples, Italy, on March 4.

Cesare Abbate / EPA

Members of the fire services continue to hose down a smouldering building amid the scene of devastation in Naples on March 5 following the night time blaze that destroyed much of the southern Italian port's City of Science complex.
Fire Brigades in action the day after the massive blaze that destroyed much of Naples Città della Scienza

From Corriere della Sera:  Naples, Italy - Four pavilions have been gutted by fire at Naples’ Città della Scienza [Science City], the interactive museum considered one of the city’s cultural treasures. The entire Città della Scienza site, which has a total of six pavilions, has been placed under judicial seizure. When fire fighters arrived on the scene on Monday evening, they found flames had swept the whole of the sea-front museum zone, except for the theatre.  Continue reading this story here.

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Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

Workers cordon off a leaning building in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday. The three-story apartment building under construction began leaning yesterday after a tunnel being built for the 2014 Winter Olympics collapsed nearby, local media said. There were no casualties reported. With the Olympics less than a year away, construction is transforming Sochi.

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

 Previously on PhotoBlog:

Grave interruption: Building around a tomb in China
China tears down house in middle of highway after owner agrees to demolition

Slideshow: Sochi 2014

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

The Winter Olympics arrive in Sochi on Feb. 7, 2014. A look at how the Russian city is shaping up for its moment in the spotlight.

Launch slideshow

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Will Boase / AFP - Getty Images

Supporters of Raila Odinga are pictured here traveling home after a major rally in Kisumu town on March 1, 2013. Kisumu town is the home of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and a hotbed of support for ODM and CORD. Kenya is to hold general elections on March 4.

Will Boase / AFP - Getty Images

Supporters of Raila Odinga celebrate as Raila takes the stage during a major rally in Kisumu town on March 1, 2013.

Will Boase / AFP - Getty Images

Supporters of Raila Odinga are pictured during a major rally in Kisumu town on March 1, 2013.

By Edmund Blair, Reuters

Kenyans choose a new president on Monday in a closely fought election that has divided the east African nation and raised fears of a repeat of the bloodshed that followed the tightly contested race five years ago.

Rival tribe members wielding machetes, knives, and bows and arrows butchered more than 1,200 people after the disputed 2007 vote, shattering Kenya's reputation as one of the continent's most stable democracies and dealing a heavy blow to east Africa's biggest economy from which it is only now recovering.

The government has spent five years trying to rebuild confidence with a reformed judiciary and newly appointed police commanders. Church preachers and civil society groups have brought politicians and rival voters together in rallies in Nairobi's central park to appeal for a peaceful vote.

Yet, this year's race is haunted by the past. One of the top two candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta, 51, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for instigating the violence after the 2007 race. And tribal loyalties will again largely determine who backs Kenyatta or his main rival Raila Odinga, 68.

Continue reading.

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

With chants of "Fill the gap!" protesters attempt to bring forward a styrofoam replica of a piece of the Berlin Wall in order to fill a gap created by construction workers in the East Side Gallery, which is the longest still-standing portion of the former Berlin Wall, as police try to block the protesters on March 1, 2013 in Berlin, Germany.

Markus Schreiber / AP

Protestors are gathering in front of a part of the former Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany, on March 1, 2013.

David Rising, The Associated Press

Thomas Peter / Reuters

People protest against the removal of a segment of the former Berlin Wall, now known as East Side Gallery, in Berlin on March 1, 2013.

Hundreds of angry protesters on Friday prevented construction workers from removing a section of one of the few remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall, part of a plan to build a road to a new luxury condominium being built on the banks of the reunited city's Spree river.

Crews only managed to remove one section from the famous East Side Gallery before about 300 protesters pressed too close for work to continue. Demonstrators then wheeled in a mock wall section they had set up in front of the gap.

The East Side Gallery is the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall and is one of the German capital's most popular tourist attractions. It was recently restored at a cost of more than €2 million ($3 million) to the city.

Continue reading.

Thomas Peter / Reuters

Police keep watch as workers remove a piece of the former Berlin Wall, now known as East Side Gallery, in Berlin on March 1, 2013.

Thomas Peter / Reuters

Police carry away a protester's styrofoam copy of a segment of the Berlin Wall at a demonstration against the removal of several segments of the original former Berlin Wall, now known as East Side Gallery, in Berlin on March 1, 2013.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural in the Bogside area of Derry depicts Operation Motorman, a 1972 British army operation aimed at reclaiming "no-go areas" in the city from the IRA.

The story of Northern Ireland's troubled history has long been told in painted murals on the walls of its cities, towns and villages. But as Cathal McNaughton explains in a post on Reuters' Photographers Blog, the images commemorating ancient battles and honoring paramilitary groups are now being joined by paintings celebrating sporting successes and cultural achievements.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural in the Bogside area of Derry depicts a petrol bomber during the Battle of the Bogside which took place in 1969 between residents of the area and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural in the Bogside area of Derry commemorates the beginning of the struggle for democratic rights.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

People walk past a Loyalist paramilitary mural in the Shankill Road area of West Belfast.

By Cathal McNaughton, Reuters

A 15-foot-high mural of a gunman dressed in army fatigues and a balaclava clutching an AK-47 is painted on the wall of a house in a residential street. People walk by and don't even notice it.

In other parts of the UK and Ireland there would probably be outrage, but not in Northern Ireland, where young children happily play on streets in front of a backdrop of politically-charged street art commemorating the violence and bloodshed of 'The Troubles'.

These murals have become street wallpaper for the people living in this small corner of Europe, who appear to barely bat an eyelid at a gory depiction of a skeleton crawling over dead bodies that adorns the end wall of a house on their street.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A man checks his cellphone beside a loyalist paramilitary mural in the Waterside area of Derry.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

Pigeons fly past a mural in the Shankill Road area of West Belfast depicting a Gaelic myth about the claiming of Ulster.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural shows tributes to Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the Shankill Road in West Belfast.

Most of the murals promote either Republican or Loyalist political beliefs. They often glorify paramilitary groups such as the IRA or the Ulster Volunteer Force with a roll call of the dead written large "lest we forget".

However since the paramilitary ceasefires of the 1990s, this distinctively Northern Irish artwork has seen a shift in tone. New murals have sprung up depicting local heroes like golfer Rory McIlroy, who represent the changing face of the province's political landscape.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

Golfer Rory McIlroy, who hails from County Down, is pictured on a wall in the Holylands area of Belfast.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural in the village of Cushendall in north Antrim commemorates 100 years of the local Gaelic Athletic Club.

Cathal McNaughton / Reuters

A mural features Irish boxer Michael Conlan winning a bronze medal in the flyweight division at the 2012 Summer Olympics on a wall in the Falls Road area of West Belfast.

It would be nice to think that one day there will be no need to paint any more murals to commemorate new victims of Northern Ireland's troubled history. But with the annual marching season fast approaching, and following the most sustained period of rioting for years, I think there may well be a few more turns in this journey yet — and fresh paint on the wall.

Read more at Reuters' Photographers Blog.

Editor's note: Images taken between Feb. 19 and Feb. 23, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Related:

Belfast 'Peace Wall' still separates Catholics, Protestants

A historic handshake, a historic image in Northern Ireland's peace process

Outside the Frame: Journalists under fire in Belfast riot