The David and Goliath struggle between Almaty and Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games comes to its conclusion on July 31 as the delegates of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to decide who will win the right to host the Games.

OSH: Authorities in Central Asia’s former Soviet ‘stans’ are taking draconian measures to stamp out militant Islam, but their harsh methods and the absence of democratic politics risk provoking a backlash that could bring even greater instability.

David Cameron has launched a war against foreign fraudsters laundering their cash in London, warning their "dodgy cash" is not welcome in the capital. The prime minister highlighted some properties are being acquired by "people overseas through anonymous shell companies, some with plundered or laundered cash". He added he does not want the UK to "become a safe haven for corrupt money from around the world".

DAVID Cameron will today announce tough new measures to stop foreign crooks using London's high-end property market to launder dirty money. The Prime Minister will commit to unmask the shady web of overseas companies used by dubious characters to mask their identities when concluding multi-million pound property deals in Britain.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un casts his vote at a polling station during the election of deputies to the provincial, city and county people's assemblies in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang on July 20, 2015. (Reuters/KCNA)

Before the International Olympic Committee makes a decision on whether Kazakhstan will host the Winter Olympics in 2022, an important milestone for the Central Asian country’s image will occur in 2017. That is the year when Astana EXPO-2017 is supposed to bring millions of visitors to Kazakhstan and showcase the country to the world. A cultural, rather than a diplomatic or business event, the expo is being prepared to considerable fanfare in Kazakhstan. Even the visa regime has been relaxed (for some countries at least) in a bid to attract more visitors. New revelations by outgoing officials, however, might further tarnish the reputation of the company that organizes the event.

A new transparency report links Rakhat Aliyev, the former son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s dictator, to a famed Baker Street address in London. Jagshemash, the game’s afoot. The home of the world’s most famous fictional detective may be owned by the deceased No. 2 secret policeman of Kazakhstan. A new deep-dive investigation conducted by the London-based transparency watchdog Global Witness suggests that Rakhat Aliyev, along with his alive and highly influential son Nurali, may be the ultimate legal owners of Sherlock Holmes’s celebrated house at 221b Baker Street—or rather, the site where the house would have been had it existed. (There’s a Sherlock museum carrying that exact address located in the wrong place, a few doors down.)

Big chunks of Baker Street are owned by a mysterious figure with close ties to a former Kazakh secret police chief accused of murder and money-laundering.

There are calls for a major probe into London's property market after a £147million empire including the world-famous 221 Baker Street was linked to a former secret police chief accused of murder and money-laundering.