Members of the family of 18-year-old conscript Hayk Khachatryan, who served only six months in the army and died of chickenpox disease complication two weeks ago have vowed to avenge his death by seeking punishment of army officers who the family says are responsible.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says her country will never do as France did on Monday, and criminalize genocide denial.

“One of our great strengths is we do not criminalize speech,” the secretary told a public meeting on Thursday. “People can say nearly anything they choose, and they do, in our country. And so other countries, including close friends and allies like France, have different standards, different histories, but we are, I hope, never going to go down that path to criminalize speech.”

On January 24, a day after the French Senate approved the bill decriminalizing the Armenian genocide, a prominent Azeri screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov announced his refusal to accept the French order of Arts and his resignation from the post of a president of Association of Azerbaijan-France Cultural Ties.

An ambitious initiative to construct an exact replica of Noah’s Ark, using biblical dimensions, on the hilltop of Yerevan’s Victory Park is under discussion at the Committee of Culture of the Public Council.

Several clubs aimed at “popularizing the ideas” of Russian premier and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin will be opened in early February in Armenia, the Commonwealth of Independent States Youth Union announced on Thursday.

Armenia is expected to play two international soccer friendlies in Cyprus on February 28 and 29.

According to Armenian Football Federation President Ruben Hayrapetyan, the opponents will be Serbia and Canada, respectively.

After much debate, Armenia has applied to participate in the 57th Eurovision 2012 International Song Contest. On Tuesday the official website of Eurovision (www. eurovision.tv) posted the list of the countries which have applied to take part in the song contest to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan this May; Armenia is among the participants.

Leaders of the two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament accused on Monday a top representative of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) of blatant pro-government bias after meeting him to discuss the political situation in the country.

Considering the extraordinary conditions that the venue of this year’s biggest European pop-music contest, Eurovision, will imply for Armenia, the national broadcaster has decided to dispense with a public selection of the entry – something that was the case, at least partially, during nearly all previous competitions.

The Senate of France on Monday voted in favor of criminalizing any public denial of the Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turks at the beginning of last century.

The vote at the 348-member upper house of the French legislature went 127-86 in favor of the bill – which had gained international attention and sparked controversy since it was passed by the National Assembly, the lower house, in December. The lawmakers deliberated 7 hours before delivering the vote at around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday (10:30 p.m. in Paris).

The holes and unevenness which regularly appear on Northern Avenue, which is considered to be the “Structure of the Century” of Yerevan, are causing anxiety among geologists, who since 2001 have been warning that the area cannot support the heavy development.

Louisa Aghajanyan, 51, from Armenia has won the Miss Grandma of Universe-2012 beauty contest held recently in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Armenian-American Mike Danielian, who starred in the basketball tournament at last year’s Pan-Armenian games in Yerevan, got off to a successful start in Germany’s professional league, helping his new team get a wafer-thin win against a traditional rival.

Another environmental campaign against mining is mounting in Armenia. This time environmentalists are concerned about the open-pit development of Amulsar gold mine on the administrative border of Armenia’s southern Vayots Dzor and Syunik provinces.

Pesticides waste dumps and dilapidated warehouses, containing more than 1,000-1,500 tons of pesticides, inherited from the Soviet Union in Armenia, are like time bombs which have already essentially damaged the environment.

WIN-Gallup International organization's representative in Armenia MPG company has released the results of World Happiness Barometer year-end survey this week, according to which 70 percent of the 500 respondents said they considered themselves happy, 10 percent – unhappy, 18 percent said they were neither happy nor unhappy, 2 percent refused to answer.

In about a week drivers in Yerevan will be under surveillance and any violation of road traffic rules will be recorded by video cameras installed in various streets and crossroads of the Armenian capital.

Months ago the traffic police started the installation process of cameras that would help to watch and regulate road traffic in Yerevan – a project implemented with the assistance of Security Dream company founded in June, 2011, with which the police has a 25-year contract.

Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian has widened his lead at the Tata Steel tournament in the Netherlands after scoring yet another victory on Wednesday.

Aronian scored his latest win – his six in 10 games in Wijk aan Zee – against Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri. Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, Aronian’s main rival, tied with Hikaru Nakamura from the United States.

Germany-based professional boxer Arthur Abraham (33-3, 27 KOs) stopped Pablo Farias (19-2, 11 KOs) of Argentina early in his comeback fight on Saturday to reassert his credentials as a once unbeaten “Abra-hammer”.

The win at Baden-Arena, in Offenburg, Germany, enabled the 31-year-old Armenian to capture the vacant WBO European super middleweight title.

A couple in Armenia named their newborn baby on Wednesday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy in appreciation of his role in the passage of the French law criminalizing the public denial of the genocide of Armenians during World War I.