BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The bombings, shootings and fighting across Iraq in nearly five years of war have left more than 85,000 Iraqis dead, a government ministry said in a report.

The Iraqi Human Rights Ministry said 85,694 people were killed from 2004 to October 31, 2008, in the violence across the country. There were 147,195 people wounded during the same period. The figures include civilians and Iraqi security forces but not insurgents and militias.

The review is considered the first official report of its kind by the Iraqi government since the war began. The ministry released the report Tuesday, and it has been posted on its Web site.

The death toll is Iraq has been a hot-button issue. Officials and other reports have said the toll is higher, and there has been disagreement about the scope of the casualties.

A ministry official told CNN that those numbers might be conservative, but they are the confirmed and documented numbers.

"Keep in your mind that there are a lot of missing people who we believe that they are dead, but can not confirm it. There are many people who have died and their families buried them without reporting it," the official said.

The war began in March 2003 with the U.S.-led invasion. But the official said that the causalities from 2003 are not documented because the governmental institutes were not fully operating, so there were no records from that period.

The independent Iraq Body Count project reports as many as 102,071 civilian deaths from the war's beginning through August 13, 2009. The IBC's Web site says its count includes only documented deaths and the actual number is probably higher.

According to the government report, there were 34,019 bodies recovered in streets, a reminder of the Sunni-Shiite fighting in Baghdad and elsewhere. The report also said the toll includes 15,000 unidentified and unclaimed bodies now buried in special cemeteries.

The death toll also includes 269 journalists, 263 professors, 95 lawyers and 21 judges. Insurgents attacked 219 Shiite mosques, 94 Sunni mosques and 41 churches.

The There is still violence in places including Baghdad and Nineveh province, but during the past year the attacks have dropped and the country is making strides to regain stability.

Editor's note: This article contains graphic images and video that some may find offensive. It's the last of a three-part series showing different aspects of life inside Colombia's drug gangs.

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- All that glitters may not be gold, but for Colombia's narco-molls the most important thing is that it glitters.

Beauty queens, fashion models, actresses or regular girls made good are lovers of drug capos and above all lovers of the finest luxuries that cocaine money can buy.

Few are prepared to speak publicly and even less to appear on camera.

Those who date mob bosses don't want to blow their cover. It could expose their boyfriends to arrest and themselves to retaliation. In addition, it could bring anti-drug police sniffing, ready to seize ill-gotten gains.

One exception is Yovanna Guzman, a former beauty queen and model, with a mane of blond hair and a pneumatic figure -- a sure passport into the narco underworld where cup size is more important than IQ.

For eight years, she was the lover of one of Colombia's most ruthless cocaine traffickers, Wilber Varela. He was head of the North Valle Cartel.

"He had two faces. I saw him so tender with the ones he loved, then you see the cartel killings. He always said he was the best of friends and the worst of enemies," Guzman said during an interview in Bogota. Watch Guzman describe Varela and how she met him »

The Colombian government accused Varela of running tons of cocaine to the United States via Central America in go-fast speedboats and to Europe in small jets.

Authorities put a $5 million bounty on his head. He gained a reputation for brutality during a yearslong dispute with a splinter faction of the same cartel, led by Diego Montoya, who until his capture in 2007 was listed alongside Osama bin Laden on the FBI's list of the 10 most-wanted fugitives.

Guzman was 19 when she met Varela. He told her he was a cattle rancher. She didn't ask questions and said she only found out the truth when she saw a Wanted poster with her boyfriend's mug shot.

He wooed her with expensive gifts and sponsored her through Chica Med, a second-rate beauty pageant organizers concede was viewed as a cattle market by gangsters looking for new girls. Some mob bosses bought the beauty title as a gift for their molls, though it's not clear whether Varela paid for Guzman's title.

"There were the vacations, the cars and the luxury SUVs and, of course, jewelry. There was always jewelry. But there were small details too like flowers," she said.

"Of course, the luxuries don't make you fall in love, but they do dazzle you. When you get dazzled, you get carried away, but then you ask yourself where is the love and my principles?"

Guzman said Varela's first gift to her was a Rolex watch, followed by a Cartier watch, diamonds, jewelry, top-of-the-range sport utility vehicles and luxury apartments. She said she now realizes she was being bought and admits she sold herself.

"I feel all of us have a price up to a point. Sometimes you feel luxuries like the designer clothes, shoes and handbags are important. But afterward you realize you're empty inside," she said.

Very quickly her drug lord boyfriend locked Guzman in a golden cage. He forbade her to do photo shoots or party with male friends, even though he had a stable of other top model girlfriends.

"He was very jealous, and what's his is his and belongs to nobody else and nobody can touch it, look at it or mess with it," she said.

As Colombia's law enforcers stepped up the hunt for Varela, Guzman's time with him became less frequent. But she said he always seemed to know where she was or to whom she had talked.

At one point, she said, a jealous Varela sent one of his lieutenants to shoot her in the leg.

"When I got shot, I was supposedly never going to walk properly again. The bullet could easily have hit me somewhere else and killed me. But I pulled myself together and I said I'm not going to be crippled," she said.

What Guzman wouldn't explain was the reason for the punishment shooting. She giggled and promised to reveal the full details in a book she's writing.

She said she hopes her experiences will serve as a cautionary tale for other young women on the trail of easy money.

Whether or not they will take a leaf out of that book is another matter. Ordinary Colombians seem to have an unshakable attraction to glamorous narco-lifestyles judging by the sky-high ratings of two TV soap operas.

The "Cartel" tells the story of the rise of the North Valle mob that Varela headed. The sequel, called "Mafia Dolls," portrays women such as Guzman.

One of the silicone-enhanced actresses who played a supporting role in both soaps said that since her TV appearances she has received offers from real-life drug dealers, both in Medellin and Cali.

"Those narcos watch TV and are always on the lookout for fresh meat. So I began getting the calls when I appeared in 'The Cartel,' " she said. "I got a phone call from a guy who is a showbiz publicist, and he told me a guy from Medellin was offering $7,500 for me to spend the evening with him."

She said she refused that overture. Days later, a new BMW X5 SUV, with a bow on top, was left outside her home by the same drug trafficker who was trying to woo her.

She said she returned the gift but gave no explanation how she found out the return address, given how secretive Colombian mob bosses are.

"All those narcos care about is how big your breasts are. If they want you, the first thing they do is send you to their plastic surgeons to have silicone implants. But it's them who decide how big you should be, not you," she went on.

Guzman dares tell her story now for a simple reason -- Varela is dead. e was slain last year by one of his power-hungry lieutenants eager to take over the business. It marked the end of a nightmare she walked into with her eyes wide open.

"[When I heard the news], I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Varela had his good side, but my freedom doesn't have a price," she said. "I felt the golden cage had been flung open, and I could fly again."

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Japanese authorities have released an American man who was jailed for allegedly trying to snatch back his children from his estranged wife.

Police in the rural southern town of Yanagawa let Christopher Savoie go Thursday without indicting him on charges of child kidnapping.

Officials said the indictment was "on hold," but did not elaborate.

The prosecutor's office in nearby Fukuoka said Savoie was released after he promised not to take his children back to the United States "in this manner," implying he could not have any contact with the children.

Savoie, 38, a Tennessee native and naturalized Japanese citizen, allegedly grabbed his children -- 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca -- as his estranged wife walked them to school on September 28 in Yanagawa.

With the children, Savoie headed for the nearest U.S. consulate, in the city of Fukuoka, to try to obtain passports for them. Screaming at guards to let him in the compound, Savoie was steps from the front gate but still standing on Japanese soil when he was arrested. Watch how Savoie's release was worked out »

Consulate spokeswoman Tracy Taylor said her office had been notified that Savoie would be released Thursday afternoon.

"We are pleased to learn he was to be released," she said. "The U.S. government, together with the Japanese government, will try to find a long-term solution to the joint custody and parenting issues."

Savoie and his first wife, Noriko Savoie, were married for 14 years before a bitter divorce in January. The couple lived in Japan but had moved to the United States before the divorce.

Christopher Savoie remarried in February. Watch what Christopher Savoie's second wife says about the case »

Noriko Savoie was given custody of the children and agreed to remain in the United States. Christopher Savoie had visitation rights.

On the day that the children were to start school in August, Savoie learned that Noriko Savoie had fled with them to Japan.

After they went to Japan, Christopher Savoie filed for and received full custody of the children. Police in Franklin, Tennessee, issued an arrest warrant for Noriko Savoie. However, Japan is not a party to a 1980 Hague Convention law on international child abduction.

Japanese law also follows a tradition of sole-custody divorces. When a couple splits, one parent typically makes a complete and lifelong break from the children.

Complicating the matter is the fact that the couple is still considered married in Japan because they never divorced here, police said. In addition, Japanese authorities say, the children hold Japanese passports.

Foreign parents have had little luck in regaining custody, the U.S. State Department said.

Noriko Savoie's mother did not want to talk about Christopher Savoie's release on Thursday.

"I cannot make any comment on this, for the sake of my grandchildren," she said.

"Japanese government is also considering seriously to conclude this treaty on the grounds that this treaty would provide one of the most effective measures to protect the children after their parents divorced,"

LONDON, England (CNN) -- New data released Thursday suggests that the Arctic Ocean will be "largely ice free" during summer within a decade.

The report, complied by the UK-based Catlin Arctic Survey and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is the latest research into ice thickness in the Arctic.

Researchers predict that within 20 years ice cover will be completely gone during the warmer months.

The expedition, which was completed in May, was led by UK explorer Pen Hadow.

He and his team collected data by manually drilling into the ice and noting its thickness along a 450-kilometer route across the northern part of the Beaufort Sea.

They found that the area surveyed was comprised almost exclusively of first year ice.

Scientists think this is significant because traditionally the region has been made up of much older, thicker ice.

"Discovering this area of younger ice provides another body of information that supports the rapidly emerging scientific consensus that it's going to be nearer 10 years from now that we will see roughly 80-85 percent free waters in the Arctic Ocean," Hadow told CNN.

Measurements taken by Hadow and his team report that the ice-floes were on average 1.8 meters thick -- which, according to scientists, is too thin to survive next summer's ice melt.

Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the UK's University of Cambridge said: "With a large part of the region now first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable. The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."

Professor Wadhams, who has analyzed the expedition data, added: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and much of that decrease will be happening within 10 years." Click here to see pictures of the expedition »

Martin Sommerkorn from the WWF International Arctic Program believes that the changes in sea-ice cover in the region are likely to increase global temperatures further.

"Such a loss of Arctic sea ice has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself," Sommerkorn said.

"Arctic sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world," he added.

Shadow fears that the current climate models developed by scientists may not be extreme enough. But he is hopeful that this new data will spur world leaders into action.

"We are now in a loss period," Hadow told CNN. "Maybe losing this sea ice, this roof on the top of our planet in going to be an important moment, a big visual aid to the science that in combination can bring about some sort of global agreement on emissions."

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied Thursday that payments to the Taliban in Afghanistan were authorized to protect Italian soldiers deployed there.

The accusation, published by the London Times, is "baseless," his office said in a written statement.

"Berlusconi's government has never authorized nor allowed any form of money payment in favor of members of the Taliban insurgency, nor does it have any knowledge of these types of initiatives enacted by the previous government.

"As a way of proving this, it is enough to remember that in the first half of the year 2008, the Italian contingency in Afghanistan have received numerous attacks, and specifically in the area of Sarobi. On February 13th, 2008, the second lieutenant Francesco Pezzulo was killed in one of those attacks," the statement continued.

According to the Times, when French troops replaced the Italians in the Sarobi area east of Kabul in mid-2008, they were not told about the practice.

"Within a month, ten French soldiers had been killed in an ambush by the insurgents. It was one of the biggest single losses of life by NATO forces in Afghanistan," the Times said.

The French public was horrified, because the men had been mutilated, it added. "They were not informed that the departing Italians had kept the region relatively peaceful by paying local Taliban fighters to remain inactive."

The Times interpreted Berlusconi's denial as an attempt to distance himself from any secret deals of the previous Italian administration. Berlusconi defeated Romano Prodi in the April 2008 elections, and the Times said he had been in power for about three months when the handover of Sarobi to the French was completed.

According to the Times, U.S. intelligence officials discovered through intercepted conversations that the Italians had been buying off militants in other areas, "notably in Herat province in the far west."

It added that "in June 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the U.S. ambassador in Rome made a demarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi government over allegations concerning the tactic."