Vincent Elkaim / AP via The Canadian Press

Iraq war resister Kimberly Rivera speaks at a press conference in Toronto in August. Rivera, who is pregnant with her fifth child, returned to to the U.S. in September and on Tuesday was sentenced to 10 months in prison for desertion.

DENVER -- An Army private believed to be the first female U.S. soldier to seek refuge in Canada rather than return to duty in Iraq was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to desertion, military officials in Colorado said on Tuesday.

Kimberly Rivera, who said she grew opposed to the war during a three-month tour of duty in Iraq, pleaded guilty at a court-martial proceeding in Fort Carson, Colo., on Monday and was sentenced immediately.

In addition to the prison time, the 30-year-old private was reduced in rank, ordered to forfeit pay and benefits and given a bad-conduct discharge, base spokeswoman Meghan Williams said.

Rivera fled to Toronto in 2007 while on leave after serving in Iraq with Fort Carson's 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, in Baghdad, according to her lawyer, James Branum.

She surrendered to authorities at the U.S. border in upstate New York last September after a Canadian court ordered her deported to the United States, capping several years spent by Rivera unsuccessfully seeking asylum in Canada.

Branum said Rivera was the first and, as far as he knows, the only female U.S. military deserter to flee to Canada during the Iraq war. The advocacy group War Resisters Support Campaign has said Rivera was the first U.S. female soldier to seek asylum in Canada to avoid redeployment to Iraq.

Rivera, who had been living in Toronto with her partner and four children, deserted because she developed an opposition to the U.S. military mission in Iraq based on her experience there, the group said.

Her case had drawn attention of such international human rights advocates as retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who urged Canadian authorities to allow Rivera to stay.

Under a deal struck with military prosecutors, Rivera agreed to plead guilty in exchange for having her prison term limited to 10 months. Rivera faced a maximum five-year sentence and a dishonorable discharge had she been convicted at trial, military authorities said.

Rivera approached a U.S. military chaplain in Iraq to express her moral reservations about continuing to serve in the conflict but was not informed of her right to seek conscientious objector status, a move that might have headed off prosecution for desertion, her lawyer said.

Rivera will remain at a county jail in Colorado for seven to 10 days before she will be transferred to a military prison, mostly likely the brig at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, Branum said.

Rivera is pregnant with her fifth child, and Branum said he will appeal to an Army judge for clemency on "humanitarian grounds."

Related:

10 years after Iraq invasion, troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'

Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' as Bush vowed?

Full Iraq coverage from NBC News

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Two Western retailers have promised to compensate families of garment workers killed while making their clothes in a Bangladesh factory building that collapsed last week in the country's worst industrial accident.

The pledge from Britain's Primark and Canada's Loblaw came after the owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza was brought before a court in the capital, Dhaka, on Monday, where lawyers and protesters chanted "hang him, hang him."

At least 385 people were killed in the disaster, the latest incident to raise serious questions about worker safety and low wages in the poor South Asian country that relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports.

With almost no hope left of finding further survivors, heavy machinery has been brought in to start clearing the mass of concrete and debris from the site in the commercial suburb of Savar, about 20 miles from Dhaka.

Eight people have been arrested: four factory bosses, two engineers, building owner Mohammed Sohel Rana, and his father, Abdul Khalek.

Police are looking for a fifth factory boss, Spanish citizen David Mayor, although it was unclear whether he was in Bangladesh at the time of the accident.

There were angry scenes as Rana, a local leader of the ruling Awami League's youth front, was led into court on Monday wearing a helmet and protective police jacket, witnesses said.

"Put the killer on the gallows. He is not worth any mercy or lenient penalty," one onlooker outside the court shouted.

Rana, who was arrested on Sunday by the elite Rapid Action Battalion while apparently trying to flee to India, was ordered to be held on remand for 15 days for interrogation.

Khalek, who officials said was named in documents as a legal owner of the Rana Plaza building, was arrested in Dhaka on Monday. Those being held face charges of faulty construction and causing unlawful death.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the wrecked building, which housed several factories on the upper floors, but hundreds of the mostly female workers who are thought to have been inside remain unaccounted for.

Primark, which was supplied by one of the factories operating at Rana Plaza, said on Monday that it was working with a local nongovernmental organization to help victims of the disaster.

"Primark will pay compensation to the victims of this disaster who worked for its supplier," said the company, owned by Associated British Foods. "This will include the provision of long-term aid for children who have lost parents, financial aid for those injured and payments to the families of the deceased."

Loblaw Companies Ltd., which had some of its Joe Fresh clothing line manufactured at Rana Plaza, said it too was offering compensation.

"We are working to ensure that we will deliver support in the best and most meaningful way possible, and with the goal of ensuring that victims and their families receive benefits now and in the future," said spokeswoman Julija Hunter in an email.

The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, said it was sending a high-level mission to Bangladesh in the coming days.

"Horror and regret must translate into firm action," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder in a statement. "Action now can prevent further tragedy." 

Related:

Rescue workers give up search for survivors of Bangladesh collapse

PhotoBlog: The search for survivors

Rescues made after collapse

While the possible construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has made for contentious disagreements from the halls of Congress to ranches in Nebraska, the real environmental debate begins in a place most Americans have never heard of.

Nearly 700 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border sits Fort McMurray, Alberta, the unofficial capital of oil sands country, and the heart of the Keystone controversy.

Canada's oil reserves rank third largest in the world and sit beneath the vast Alberta forest. Oil mining companies like Shell, Syncrude and Suncor surround the town. They are big industrial operations in an even bigger forest.

Oil here is not the liquid black gold you think of in Texas or Oklahoma or the Gulf of Mexico.  It is a tar-like substance called bitumen.  It is excavated by mining or steam assisted drilling, where it is literally melted a quarter mile beneath the earth.  This oil is so heavy it must be upgraded or diluted before it can transported.

At Shell's Jackpine Mine in the oil sands, the company digs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Twenty-eight trucks burning 45 gallons of diesel fuel an hour transport the goods once lifted from the ground.

The whole operation is a carbon intensive process sending more global warming gases into the atmosphere. How much depends on your point of view. The oil industry downplays the impact, but opponents claim it is up to 37 percent more carbon intensive to produce a barrel of crude from oil sands.

The State Department, in its review of Keystone, says the oil from this area produces 17 percent more greenhouse gasses than conventional crude.  Those emissions are the heart of the environmental debate in Alberta, and a big reason why opponents call this "dirty oil."

Jeff Mcintosh / AP file

This Sept. 19, 2011 aerial photo shows an oil sands mine facility near Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada.

The oil sands industry here plans to more than double its production by 2030. Shell Vice President Tom Purves explains, "We have a massive resource here that's oil from a country that's very stable, it's a democratic country. We're able to transport this oil on pipelines safely to the US and other parts of the world, other parts of North America. And I think we'll be using fossil fuels for a long time - this will be an important part of it."

Opponents say this is not about stopping development. They realize this is a natural resource crucial to Canada's future. For them, it's about the pace, the scale and how it adds to Canada's carbon footprint. They worry approval of the Keystone pipeline will turbo-charge growth.

Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation understands the booming industry brings modern conveniences. It also brings, she says, modern problems threatening the forest and wildlife that are still part of the First Nations culture and have been for centuries.

"There has to be a balance, and respect for human - fundamental human rights and the rights to human subsistence and survivals. What we're seeing is that balance is out of whack here in Alberta. I think we're seeing development take precedence over the preservation of peoples and people's basic right to human survival," she said.

At the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank, the focus is about carbon dioxide.  If things continue the way they are, says Jennifer Grant, Pembina's Oil Sands director, Canada will not meet its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Right now between 2005 and 2020, we're expecting 67 million tons of reductions from other sectors in Canada's economy.  During that same timeframe we're expected to see 72 million tons oil sands greenhouse gas emissions growth," Grant said.

Todd Korol / REUTERS file

Oil, steam and natural gas pipelines run through the forest at the Cenovus Foster Creek SAGD oil sands operations near Cold Lake, Alberta, in a July 9, 2012, photo.

Aware of the concerns in Canada and in the U.S. about climate change, the industry is quick to point out it has reduced carbon emissions intensity – that is, the emissions created per barrel – 26 percent from 1990 to 2009. But overall emissions are still growing because of increases in production. Shell hopes to have the ability to capture some of the carbon emissions at one of its facilities by 2015.

But there is no perfect way to extract oil. Cenovus, a Canadian company which drills for oil, uses natural gas to make steam. Al Reid, vice president of Cenovus' Christina Lake operation, says reducing the amount of natural gas it burns shrinks the carbon footprint and helps the bottom line. But he admits there's only so much they can do.

"With today's technology, we will not get emissions down to zero. Can we continue to decrease them? I think that's very possible and that's something that we work on every single day," he said. "And over time there may be a technology that allows us to do that but we don't have that technology today."

There's no question the debate in the U.S. over Keystone is having an impact in Canada. This month, Alberta's government floated the idea of raising its price on carbon to force the industry to do more to reduce emissions. Will that be enough to convince President Barack Obama to approve a pipeline that carries oil with a bigger carbon footprint?

It's not just the environment. There are issues of energy security and economic impact. The State Department says the extension would provide 3,900 construction jobs over a  1 to 2 year period  and another 38,200 positions associated with the construction over the same time frame. Once built it says the pipeline would create 35 permanent jobs and 15 temporary ones, according to the government study released last month. It is multifaceted issue that will dominate discussion for months to come.

The two suspects in the alleged al Qaeda-backed plot to blow up a rail line between the United States and Canada appeared in court on Tuesday, as revelations emerged that the Muslim community helped foil the potentially deadly plan.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that it had arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, of Toronto, over what sources said was a plan to derail a train from the United States after it had crossed the border.

Jaser, 35, appeared briefly in a Toronto court on Tuesday for a bail hearing. A long beard covered his face, and he wore a black shirt with no tie, and was accompanied by  his parents and brother, the Associated Press reported.

Jaser entered no plea and was ordered to appear again in court next month. His lawyer was granted a publication ban on future evidence and testimony.

In a Montreal courtroom, Esseghaier, 30, declined a court appointed lawyer and addressed the judge in French, according to the Montreal Gazette. “All the conclusions that have been made, I can describe them as conclusions that have been made from facts and things said that are nothing but appearances. We can’t make these conclusions because we are not in a backwards state,” the paper reports him telling the judge.

Neither of the men are Canadian citizens, but authorities have not revealed their nationalities.

Several sources told NBCNewYork.com that Amtrak trains out of New York City may have been scouted by the suspects.

Muhammad Robert Heft, a Muslim community leader in the Scarborough area of Canada's biggest city, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that he expected ordinary Muslims would experience problems because of the allegations.

But he said Muslims had helped the security services detain the suspects.

"There is going to be backlash," Heft told the Sun. "But I want to reiterate. Who was the one who tipped the RCMP off? It was our community."

"We have to be on the front lines," he said. "To either nip it in the bud in the very beginning or co-operate with authorities so they can be brought to justice."

"In our community we may look a little different, but in our hearts we love Canada. It's our country. It's our tribe," he added. "We want safety for all Canadians regardless of their religion."

Police also said a tip from the Muslim community had helped their year-long investigation, Reuters reported.

"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured," Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Assistant Commissioner James Malizia told reporters.

"The individuals were receiving support from al Qaeda elements located in Iran," he said.

Iran denied any involvement in the alleged attack plan. “Iran's position against this group is very clear and well known. Al Qaeda has no possibility to do any activity inside Iran or conduct any operation abroad from Iran territory,” the Iranian Mission to the U.N. said in a statement to NBC News. “We reject strongly and categorically any connection to this story.”

Malizia said the RCMP believed the two had the capacity and intent to carry out the attack, but there was no imminent threat to the public, passengers, or infrastructure, Reuters reported.

U.S. officials said the attack would have targeted a rail line between New York and Toronto, a route that travels along the Hudson Valley into New York wine country and enters Canada near Niagara Falls.

New York-area commuters like Jason Rivers told NBCNewYork.com that they took the threat seriously.

"I'm always concerned," Rivers said at Penn Station. "I live in New Jersey, but every day I come through here. You just never know."

"Unfortunately, the country's a little bit on edge about what's going on, so I think it's natural that everybody be concerned," another commuter Michael Milch said.

Some security experts were surprised by the alleged link to al Qaeda factions in Iran, whose Shiite rulers have a generally hostile attitude toward the Sunni militant movement. Reuters explained:

Iran did host some senior al Qaeda figures under a form of house arrest in the years following the September 11 attacks, but there has been little to no evidence to date of joint attempts to execute violence against the West.

However, a U.S. government source said Iran is home to a little-known network of alleged al Qaeda fixers and "facilitators" based in the Iranian city of Zahedan, very close to Iran's borders with both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The source said the operatives serve as go-betweens, travel agents and financial intermediaries for al Qaeda operatives and cells operating in Pakistan and moving through the area.

They do not operate under the protection of the Iranian government, which periodically launches crackdowns on the al Qaeda elements, though at other times appears to turn a blind eye to them.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Canada thwarts plot to blow up U.S.-Canada rail line

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:08 AM EDT

A woman in Manitoba, Canada, was receiving rabies treatment Wednesday after surviving a roadside attack by a timber wolf.

Dawn Hepp was driving along a highway near Grand Rapids, Manitoba, on March 8 when she pulled over to see if a stopped motorist was in need of help, Canadian national broadcaster CBC reported.

As she walked to the other motorist's car, the wolf leapt at her.

"His face and his jaws were around my neck," she told CBC, adding that she could feel the wolf's fur on her face.

"He dug a little deeper with that tooth and by the larynx," she added. "Whether he couldn't get a good enough grip or what, he let go."

Hepp told the broadcaster that she remembered something her father taught her to do if an animal on their farm ever turned on her.

"I could just hear my dad saying, 'Stay calm, Dawn. Stay calm, Dawn.' So what I did was I just stayed calm, I didn't yell, I didn't scream," she said.

Her husband, Kim Hepp, said Wednesday his wife was still in the town of Ashern, where she drove to get medical attention after the attack and where she continues to get rabies injections.

"She's got to stay until she's done with the needles," he said.

Hepp said hearing that his wife had been attacked by a wolf was "pretty scary."

"The [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] were in my yard and told me she was attacked by a wolf and was in a hospital," he said. "I asked straight away if she was OK."

Once free, Hepp walked to her car, wolf in tow, apologized to the other motorist -- who wasn't having car trouble after all -- for having to go, then drove herself three hours to get help, Canada's National Post reported. 

Hepp said the wolf, standing on its hind paws, was taller than her, and she estimated its weight at 200 pounds, according to the paper.

Her husband said he was surprised that the incident had occurred at all.

"There are a lot of wolves in and around town," he said, "but you don't hear about people being attacked by them."

Hank Hristienko, a big-game biologist with government agency Manitoba Conservation, said: "It's extremely rare. As far as we can tell, this is the first ever here in Manitoba."

Disease, starvation, an injury or the desire to protect a nearby kill could have caused the wolf to attack, he said.

Hristienko said he doubted that the attack was driven by a desire to eat. "If it were a predatory attack, she would probably not be surviving," he said.

Hristienko said there are probably at least 4,000 wolves in the province, which at about 250,000 square miles is a little smaller than Texas.

Related:

Murderer's corpse dragged from car, eaten by bear in Canada

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are failing to protect aboriginal women in northern regions from violence, according to a report from an international human rights group that also alleged abusive behavior by police officers themselves.

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged the Canadian government to probe dozens of murders and disappearances of females along a northern strip of highway in the Pacific province of British Columbia known as the "Highway of Tears."

"The threat of domestic and random violence on one side, and mistreatment by RCMP officers on the other, leaves indigenous women in a constant state of insecurity," said Meghan Rhoad, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

"Where can they turn for help when the police are known to be unresponsive and, in some cases, abusive?"

Human Rights Watch said it sent researchers to the area between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, last July and August and interviewed 50 indigenous women and girls, while also talking with affected families and native leaders.

The group said it was told of excessive use of force, strip searches of women by male officers, as well as physical and sexual abuse.

"One woman said that in July, four police officers took her to a remote location, raped her, and threatened to kill her if she told anyone," the report stated.

Police in British Columbia noted that no one linked to the report had officially filed a complaint.

"It is impossible to deal with such public and serious complaints when we have no method to determine who the victims or the accused are," the force said in a statement.

Last year an official inquiry found that police in British Columbia made critical errors in pursuing serial killer Robert Pickton, partly because of "systemic bias" against his victims, who were sex trade workers, several of whom were aboriginal women. Pickton was convicted of six murders, but prosecutors believe he killed many more women.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said an official commission for complaints against the RCMP, the national police force, would look into the Human Rights Watch report.

"The responsibility of every member in this House is not simply to throw around allegations," he told Parliament, urging those with information to talk to the relevant authorities.

Aboriginal leaders called on the government to implement the recommendations in the report.

"The stories shared in this report are heart-wrenching and absolutely appalling, particularly given this is only a small sample of the conditions and experiences of indigenous women, girls and families across our territories," said Shawn Atleo, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, a national umbrella group for aboriginal organizations.

RCMP via Reuters

Naval intelligence officer Jeffrey Delisle is shown in this still image taken from video of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police videotaped interrogation of the confessed spy in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia on Jan.13, 2012. Delisle found himself facing Mountie Jim Moffatt at the RCMP detachment after he was arrested following the interception days earlier of attempted transmissions to the Russians.

Published at 7:15 p.m. ET -- A Canadian naval officer who handed over secrets to Russia for more than four years, damaging Canada's relations with the United States and other key allies, was jailed for 20 years on Friday.

Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Delisle, dressed in a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans, showed no reaction when found guilty of breach of trust and handing information to a foreign entity that could harm national interests.

He was also fined $111,817 (Canadian), the sum he received from his Russian spy masters.

Delisle, 41, worked at a security unit in Halifax that tracked vessels entering and exiting Canadian waters. He stole secret information by copying it onto a computer memory stick.

Officials told a sentencing hearing last week that allies had threatened to withhold intelligence from Canada unless it tightened security procedures.

Canada shares sensitive information with the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

Gen. Tom Lawson, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Canada was boosting security in the wake of what he called Delisle's odious behavior.

"A critical foundation of our intelligence mission is the mutual trust we have forged with our allies ... Sub-Lieutenant Delisle failed each and every Canadian," he said in a statement.

Delisle, unhappy after his marriage started to break up, walked into the Russian embassy in Ottawa in July 2007 and offered to sell secrets.

Authorities first became suspicious after Delisle returned to Canada from a meeting with a Russian handler in Brazil in 2011, carrying tens of thousands of dollars in cash and pre-paid credit cards. This prompted an investigation that ended with the officer's arrest in January 2012.

He was the first person to be charged under a secrecy law that was enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and can carry a life sentence. Prosecutors had demanded a 20-year sentence while Delisle's lawyers argued a 10-year term would be appropriate.

As he left court he glanced briefly at several members of his family in the room.

Defence lawyer Mike Taylor said Delisle "is a little bit shocked. It's a significant sentence that he received and one that quite frankly I don't think he was really expecting."

Taylor told reporters it was too early to say whether an appeal would be lodged.

Delisle was also given nine years in jail for attempting to communicate information to a foreign entity and five years for breach of trust, with all sentences to be served concurrently.

Taking the time he served in pretrial custody into account, Delisle will spend 18 years and five months in jail.