AL-QUDS: Israel’s army has launched a campaign against Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli and called for a boycott of products she promotes, after she asked to be listed as a foreign resident to pay less taxes, media reported on Thursday.

The boycott call was issued by armed forces human resources director Avi Zamir when he addressed students in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.

“I can’t take on Bar Refaeli, but you can,” the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted him as saying in urging Israelis not to buy products she promotes.

Bar Refaeli (24,) who is reported to have recently rekindled her romance with US actor Leonardo Di Caprio, already stirred anger in the army when she got an exemption from military service when she got married in 2007, but she divorced soon after that.

Plane crew charged over weapons haul  BANGKOK: Thai police said on Thursday they brought charges against five alleged arms traffickers over a sanctions-busting planeload of weapons seized last month en route from North Korea.

The Belarussian pilot and four Kazakh crew were charged with possessing illegal weapons and ammunition, smuggling weapons and other banned products and for failing to report their cache, Police Colonel Supisarn Pakdinaruenart told reporters.

The five men were arrested last month after their Ilyushin-76 plane was impounded in Bangkok with a 35-tonne cargo of weaponry including missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. The police have questioned 21 witnesses and it is now for the Attorney General’s office to decide if the case will go to court, Supisarn said.