The Ashland Civic Center Council Chambers is normally a place to make decisions about issues such as affordable housing and utility rate increases.

But the room where the City Council meets recently became a temporary gallery.

Drummond Co. said Tuesday it is confident of victory in legal battles over its Colombia operation, which has been the subject of considerable litigation.

"After seven long years of defend­ing three lawsuits, two of the cases have been decided in Drummond's favor," company President Garry Neil Drummond said Tuesday. "The goodwill and name of the company will be preserved."

The developments have stacked up quickly this week in what has been an odyssey of litigation related to Drummond's 4,000-employee mine near La Loma, Colombia:

An Uzbek rights activist has said he was beaten up after helping the BBC investigate the use of child labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry.

Bakhtiyar Hamrayev said he was attacked within hours of the story appearing on the BBC News website and radio.

The report found that children as young as 11 were being taken out of school to help pick the cotton harvest.

The government pledged to stop using child labour last year after some Western firms boycotted Uzbek cotton.

Regulating conditions of workers who create city-purchased garments should not be accomplished through an ordinance, several city councilors stated this week.

During a Monday meeting of the ordinances & rules subcommittee, a proposed “sweatshop” law detoured back to the city solicitor for a makeover into a less formal “policy.”

The “sweatshop” initiative — based on laws enacted in other municipalities — was first proposed locally by Rinaldo Del Gallo III. Liana Foxvog, an activist supporting such laws, has travelled to Pittsfield to promote the discussion...