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First Hydrogen Secures Green Hydrogen and Zero-Emission Vehicle Production Sites in Quebec

Vancouver, British Columbia – Newsfile Corp. – May 4, 2023 – First Hydrogen Corp. (TSXV: FHYD) (OTC Pink: FHYDF) (FSE: FIT) (“FIRST HYDROGEN” or the “Company“) announces that it has entered into an agreement with the City of Shawinigan for the purchase of two plots of land. First Hydrogen’s project plan is to produce up to 35MW of green hydrogen using advanced electrolysis technology and distribute the hydrogen within the Montreal-Quebec City corridor for use with First Hydrogen’s light commercial vehicles (LCV), as well as supporting other hydrogen-fuelled vehicles and applications in the province. First Hydrogen LCVs are planned to be assembled in Shawinigan for distribution throughout North America, in combination with the Company’s Hydrogen-as-a-Service product offering. The assembly factory will be designed for an annual production of 25,000 vehicles per year when at full capacity. Feasibility engineering and related site development activities will start once the agreements are fully ratified by the city of Shawinigan municipal authorities, expected to be held sometime in May.

The Company previously announced that the City of Shawinigan, Quebec will be the location of its first green hydrogen ecosystem, which will include facilities for green hydrogen production and the assembly of First Hydrogen’s zero-emission commercial vehicles. In addition to supporting the Quebec Government’s Green Hydrogen and Bioenergy Strategy, First Hydrogen’s plans strongly align with the future Energy Transition Valley Innovation Zone and the Hydrogen Research Institute (IRH) of the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières. Feasibility engineering will be completed by mid-2024, enabling subsequent project development steps for full project commercialization by 2026-27, aligning well with Provincial, Canadian and US emission reduction plans.

Balraj Mann, Chairman & CEO of First Hydrogen, stated, “Shawinigan is the ideal place for us to establish a hydrogen ecosystem. The city and region are very well positioned, with rich renewable energy resources, developing industrial communities and a growing green energy economy. It will also be very important to work closely with the regional education network to create the skills required for tomorrow. We are very happy that Investissement Québec recommended Shawinigan to us and we project that our combined projects will ultimately create hundreds of jobs for the region.”

Luc Arvisais , Director of the Shawinigan Economic Development Department, commented, “After great collaboration work between First Hydrogen and our economic development team, the company chose to implement their hydrogen production project within the J. Armand Foucher Industrial Park in close proximity to major Hydro Quebec substations and transmission lines that connect Shawinigan with extensive renewable energy assets within the Province. The zero-emission vehicle project will be located in the Energy Technopark. Both sites have sufficient space for the long-term growth of First Hydrogen’s North American vehicle and hydrogen production plan.”

About First Hydrogen Corp. (FirstHydrogen.com)
First Hydrogen Corp. is a Vancouver and London UK-based company focused on zero-emission vehicles, green hydrogen production and distribution and supercritical carbon dioxide extractor systems. The Company has designed and built hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered light commercial demonstrator vehicles (“LCV”) under two agreements with AVL Powertrain and Ballard Power Systems Inc. The LCV will have a range of 400+ kilometres. These vehicles are currently being trialed with an initial 16 fleet operators in the United Kingdom. At the same time, the company has launched its bespoke vehicle design phase which will develop its fleet of proprietary zero-emission vehicles. First Hydrogen is also developing refueling capability working with FEV Consulting GmbH, the automotive consultancy of FEV Group of Aachen Germany. The Company is also pursuing opportunities in green hydrogen production and distribution in the UK, EU and North America.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of
FIRST HYDROGEN CORP.
“Balraj Mann”
Chairman & Group CEO

Contact:
Balraj Mann
First Hydrogen Corp.
604-601-2018
investors@firsthydrogen.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains information or statements that constitute “forward-looking statements.” Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by words such as “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “estimates,” “projects,” “potential” and similar expressions, or that events or conditions “will,” “would,” “may,” “could” or “should” occur.

Forward-looking information may include, without limitation, statements regarding the operations, business, financial condition, expected financial results, performance, prospects, opportunities, priorities, targets, goals, ongoing objectives, milestones, strategies and outlook of First Hydrogen, and includes statements about, among other things, future developments and the future operations, strengths and strategies of First Hydrogen. Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about management’s current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results.

The forward-looking statements made in this news release are based on management’s assumptions and analysis and other factors that may be drawn upon by management to form conclusions and make forecasts or projections, including management’s experience and assessments of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments. Although management believes that these assumptions, analyses and assessments are reasonable at the time the statements contained in this news release are made, actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. Examples of risks and factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements may include: the timing and unpredictability of regulatory actions; regulatory, legislative, legal or other developments with respect to its operations or business; limited marketing and sales capabilities; early stage of the industry and product development; limited products; reliance on third parties; unfavourable publicity or consumer perception; general economic conditions and financial markets; the impact of increasing competition; the loss of key management personnel; capital requirements and liquidity; access to capital; the timing and amount of capital expenditures; the impact of COVID-19; shifts in the demand for First Hydrogen’s products and the size of the market; patent law reform; patent litigation and intellectual property; conflicts of interest; and general market and economic conditions.

The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of First Hydrogen as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. First Hydrogen undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management’s beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICE PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Lao President Pays respect to the late king Norodom Sihanouk During Phnom Penh Visit

President Thongloun Lays Wreaths During Phnom Penh Visit
President Thongloun Sisoulith bowing to the Cambodian flag as a sign of respect.

President Thongloun Sisoulith laid wreaths at the Independence Monument and the Royal Monument Statue to pay his respects to the late king Norodom Sihanouk, during his visit to Phnom Penh on 4 May.

Shooting Victim “Jack” Anousa Survives Attack by Unknown Assailant

Jack Believed to Be Dead After Shooting in Vientiane Revealed to Still Be Alive
25-year-old Anousa Jack, a resident of Chanthabouly District, was shot fatally on Saturday.

Sources report that Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom, a 25-year-old man who was thought to have died in a shooting in Vientiane Capital on Saturday, is now believed to be alive.

Vegetables Get More Expensive in Laos After New Year Celebration

A woman purchases vegetables at a market in Laos (Photo: Lao Economic Daily).

Vegetable prices in Laos have increased following Lao New Year celebrations primarily due to the country’s soaring inflation rate.

Cyber-Risk Declines But 78% of Organizations Predict Successful Attacks in Coming Year

Trend Micro’s Cyber Risk Index finds preparedness is slowly improving

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 4 May 2023 – Trend Micro (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, today announced that cyber-risk levels have improved from “elevated” to “moderate” for the first time, but that insiders represent a persistent threat for global organizations.

To read a full copy of the Trend Micro Cyber Risk Index (CRI) 2H 2022*, please visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_hk/security-intelligence/breaking-news/cyber-risk-index

Jon Clay, VP of threat intelligence at Trend Micro: “For the first time since we’ve been running these surveys, we saw the global cyber-risk index not only improve but move into positive territory at +0.01. It means that organizations may be taking steps to improve their cyber-preparedness. There is still much to be done, as employees remain a source of risk. The first step to managing this is to gain complete and continuous attack surface visibility and control.”

The CRI found that cyber-preparedness improved in Europe and APAC but declined slightly in North and Latin America over the past six months. At the same time, threats declined in every region bar Europe.

Most organizations are still pessimistic about their prospects over the coming year. The CRI found that most respondents said it was “somewhat to very likely” they’d suffer a breach of customer data (70%) or IP (69%) or a successful cyber-attack (78%).

These figures represent declines of just 1%, 2%, and 7%, respectively, from the last report.

The top four threats listed by respondents in the CRI 2H 2022 remained the same from the previous report:

  1. Clickjacking
  2. Business Email Compromise (BEC)
  3. Ransomware
  4. Fileless attacks

“Botnets” replaced “login attacks” in fifth place.

Global respondents also named employees as representing three of their top five infrastructure risks:

  1. Negligent insiders
  2. Cloud computing infrastructure and providers
  3. Mobile/remote employees
  4. Shortage of qualified personnel
  5. Virtual computing environments (servers, endpoints)

Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of Ponemon Institute, said: “As the shift to hybrid working gathers momentum, organizations are rightly concerned about the risk posed by negligent employees and the infrastructure used to support remote workers. They will need to focus not only on technology solutions but people and processes to help mitigate these risks.”

Based on the global survey results, the greatest areas of concern for businesses related to cyber-preparedness are:

People: “My organization’s senior leadership does not view security as a competitive advantage.”

Process: “My organization’s IT security function doesn’t have the ability to unleash countermeasures (such as honeypots) to gain intelligence about the attacker.”

Technology: “My organization’s IT security function does not have the ability to know the physical location of business-critical data assets and applications.”

*The six-monthly Cyber Risk Index was compiled by the Ponemon Institute from interviews with 3729 global organizations. The index is based on a numerical scale of -10 to 10, with -10 representing the highest level of risk. It is calculated by subtracting the score for cyber threats from the score for cyber-preparedness.

Hashtag: #TrendMicro


The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro’s cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world.

Hong Kong Baptist University joint research suggests that urine cytomegalovirus test facilitates early prediction of AIDS end-organ diseases

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 4 May 2023 – A Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) collaborative research team has shown that urine tests for human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) can identify the risk of end-organ diseases such as pneumonitis, gastrointestinal ulcers, hepatitis and myocarditis, earlier in patients who have been infected with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). The findings suggest that HCMV detection in urine should be implemented as a routine test for HIV-1 patients who are progressing towards acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), as anti-HCMV treatments could reduce the incidence of lung and cardiovascular end-organ diseases by half.

The research findings have been published in the Journal of Clinical Virology, an international scientific journal.

No routine HCMV check-ups for HIV-1 patients

HIV-1 infection is divided into four clinical stages. In the first stage, patients are infected and some experience mild illnesses such as a cold without any apparent symptoms. HIV-1 infection then slowly progresses towards AIDS in the second and third stages of infection. These two stages, collectively regarded as the “developing” stage, usually last several years if they are comprehensively controlled by a range of medications before developing into AIDS, which represents the fourth stage of HIV-1 infection.

HCMV is a DNA virus found in more than half of the human population. It is controlled by an intact immune system and remains dormant in healthy individuals. However, it can be reactivated in patients with poor immune systems, such as those in the fourth stage of HIV-1 infection, and as a result it can become one of the major opportunistic infections that cause life-threatening end-organ diseases. In Hong Kong, HCMV detection is not part of the routine check-ups for HIV-1 patients unless they suffer from apparent end-organ diseases. In such cases, blood tests are the preferred method of detection.

A research team co-led by Dr Allen Cheung Ka-loon, Assistant Professor of the Department of Biology at HKBU, and Professor Chen Zhiwei, Professor of the Department of Microbiology, LKS Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with researchers from the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen, investigated the detection of HCMV in urine for the continuous monitoring of end-organ disease risk in HIV-1 patients. They also examined the relationship between HCMV detection and end-organ diseases in HIV-1 patients in the “developing” stage.

Easier to detect HCMV in urine than in blood

The team screened the records of more than 130,000 HIV-1 patients in Shenzhen between January 2011 and June 2022, and selected about 13,700 patients with relevant blood and urine test records. They were grouped according to the four stages of HIV-1 infection, and the results of their HCMV blood and urine tests were then compared.

It was discovered that in all the four patient groups, the proportions of patients found to be HCMV-positive were higher in the urine samples than in the corresponding blood samples. The situation was particularly obvious for HIV-1 patients in the “developing” stage. Urine tests showed that 5.8% of second-stage HIV-1 patients were HCMV-positive compared to only 0.9% using blood tests. The proportions of third-stage HIV-1 patients found to be HCMV-positive using urine and blood tests were 12.8% and 1.4%, respectively. This suggests that HCMV is more easily detected in urine than in the blood, especially during the “developing” stage of HIV-1 infection.

The researchers further filtered 233 “developing” stage HIV-1 patients with detailed clinical and disease records to evaluate the association between HCMV and the onset of different types of end-organ diseases. Statistical analysis revealed that there is a significant association between the incidence of lung and cardiovascular end-organ diseases and the detection of HCMV in urine.

Early anti-HCMV treatment lowers the risk of end-organ diseases

To study the effect of early interventions with anti-HCMV treatments, the team tracked the data of 54 “developing” stage HIV-1 patients who had been hospitalised at least once. They were divided into three groups: those who received no anti-HCMV treatments, those who received treatments but not during each round of hospitalisation, and those who received treatments during all rounds of hospitalisation.

The data showed that those who received anti-HCMV treatments in all rounds of hospitalisation had the lowest incidence of lung and cardiovascular end-organ diseases. Furthermore, compared to those who had not received anti-HCMV treatments, the incidence of such end-organ diseases in patients who had received the treatments was reduced by half. This suggests that continuous anti-HCMV treatments are effective in reducing the onset of lung and cardiovascular end-organ diseases in patients who are progressing towards AIDS.

Dr Allen Cheung said: “Patients have to face a difficult journey once they have tested positive for HIV. They are often at risk of developing end-organ diseases without any apparent symptoms. Our study shows that routine urine tests for HCMV can monitor the development of end-organ diseases more effectively, which signals the need for early medical intervention. We thus recommend that HCMV detection in urine should be implemented as a routine test for HIV-1 patients.”

Hashtag: #HIV #HKBU

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Asia Poised to Drive Global Economic Growth, Boosted by China’s Reopening

Asia Poised to Drive Global Economic Growth, Boosted by China’s Reopening
Walking street in China (photo: China Dialogue)

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China and India together are forecast to generate about half of global growth this year.

Sustainable Tourism Can Conserve Environment, Says Tourism Official

Sustainable Tourism Can Conserve Environment, Says Tourism Official.
Attendees at a sustainable tourism awareness raising event (photo: Pasason)

Ms. Sengsoda Vanthanouvong, Deputy Director of the Tourism Promotion Department, Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism (MICT) recently spoke about the impact of tourism on the environment at an event aimed at raising awareness for sustainable tourism.