KINIROUNDUP | Here are key headlines you may have missed yesterday, in brief.

1. The Ministry of Health (MOH), through the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC), received four suspected cases of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and confirmed that laboratory tests conducted on all four suspected 2019-nCoV patients found them to be negative for the virus.

2. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has agreed to attend the Gerakan Chinese New Year open house in Kuala Lumpur this Saturday, party president Dominic Lau said, adding that there is no political agenda behind the move.

Former Gerakan secretary-general Liang Teck Ming was not impressed, pointing out that Lau had called Mahathir Malaysia's most racist PM less than three months ago.

3. Malaysia has markedly improved in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2019, jumping 10 spots from the 61st place in 2018 to be ranked 51 last year.

4. Humans rights group Lawyers for Liberty announced it will file a suit against Singapore Home Minister K Shanmugam over a "correction direction" pursuant to Singapore's Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (Pofma).

The island nation has hotly rejected claims made by the group that unlawful methods were employed in judicial executions conducted in Changi Prison.

5. Malaysian author Hanna Alkaf became a winner in the Freeman Book Awards 2019 with her novel The Weight of Our Sky, which came up tops in the Young Adult/High School Literature awards category.

6. The PKR disciplinary board cannot be forced into making decisions on party vice-president Zuraida Kamaruddin, said its president Anwar Ibrahim, who also downplayed a joint statement by 46 PKR leaders to stop targeting Zuraida.

7. Malindo Air confirmed that one of the engines on Flight OD1231 suffered a minor fire when the engine was starting up at the Sultan Ismail Petra Airport in Kota Bharu about 8.10pm on Wednesday.

8. China has put a lockdown on two cities at the epicentre of a new coronavirus outbreak that has killed 17 people and infected nearly 600, as health authorities around the world scramble to prevent a global pandemic.