Odds and ends

• The State Department issued its annual human trafficking report, again placing Cuba in its lowest category, Tier 3, along with the Dominican Republic. Cuba’s reaction: “shameful defamation.” The report covers the United States for the first time, ranking our country in Tier 1, but with problems – thousands in “sexual slavery.”

• The Ballet Nacional de Cuba performs May 31-June 5, 2011 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, June 14-19, 2011 at the Orange County (California) Performing Arts Center, and in Los Angeles June 23-26, 2011.

• A Granma headline, for the guys at Babalu: “Wearing a Che T-shirt a Crime in Poland.”

• “Freedom and Exchange in Communist Cuba,” an essay by Yoani Sanchez that won an award last year, now published in English by the Cato Institute. And here’s Yoani on what is not discussed in Granma’s letters to the editor columns.