Czech news in brief for May 21: Thursday's top morning headlines

Good morning, as we move into the end of the week toward a glorious weekend (our selection of events to help you plan for it is publishing today). The headlines continue to be dominated by Prague's "Ebola" expat, an American quarantined at Bulovka hospital. See more on that below, and looking ahead today, we'll explain the latest scandals that have hit Czech football and look back at a history of hooliganism in our weekly explainer. Do you have a tip for an explainer or a new question? Ask us here.

Prague hosts the Globsec security forum from Thursday to Saturday, Central Europe's most important annual gathering on defense and foreign policy. President Pavel will open proceedings, with 80 countries represented, the highest ever. This year's central question: will Europe shape the new world order, or be shaped by it? Czech army chief Karel Řehka and Moldovan President Maia Sandu are also among the speakers.

Why Prague? Globsec was, until recently, held in Bratislava, but the Fico government's hostility toward the forum's liberal-internationalist orientation made Slovakia an untenable home.

Important to know: Globsec carries weight as a venue where European defense priorities get shaped outside formal government channels. With Czech army chief Řehka on the program alongside former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviychuk, the forum arrives at a moment when Czech defense policy and its NATO credibility are under active scrutiny.

Czechia was the only EU member state to abstain, rather than support, a UN General Assembly resolution backing the International Court of Justice's landmark climate ruling, which holds that states bear legal responsibility for failing their climate commitments and could face compensation claims. One hundred forty-one countries voted in favor; eight voted against, including the US and Russia. Czechia abstained alongside major fossil fuel producers, including Qatar, Kuwait, and Kazakhstan.

The American doctor who had contact with an Ebola-infected person in Uganda arrived at Prague's Bulovka Teaching Hospital just after 1 a.m. Wednesday, transported in isolation from Ruzyně Airport following decontamination on arrival. He has no symptoms, and his condition is described as stable. The move is drawing criticism both at home and from the US.

Who foots the bill? He will remain isolated with only his phone for at least three weeks in the clinic's dedicated biobox an airtight unit with its own air filtration system. The US is covering all costs.

House Speaker Tomio Okamura is calling for visa-free travel for Czech citizens to China and a drive to bring Chinese tourists back to pre-pandemic levels, when they were the highest spenders per day of any nationality in Czechia. He estimates a tourism boost could generate a billion crowns annually in VAT alone.

Diplomatic reset? The push fits neatly into the Babiš government's broader pivot toward pragmatic engagement with Beijing rather than a values-based foreign policy.

A new law taking effect June 19 will require Czech e-shops to add a clearly visible button for withdrawing from purchases, making returns as simple as buying. The change transposes an EU directive on distance contracts and applies beyond financial services to regular online shopping. Customers currently face a maze of hidden forms and unclear rules; legal experts say 90 perent of e-shops don't yet know the change is coming.