WikiLeaks has accused the Ecuadorean embassy of spying on their founder Julian Assange, with Spanish police now investigating an extortion attempt threatening to publish sensitive documents.

The organisation’s editor-in-chief says he met a group in Spain threatening to publish private legal documents, video, audio and photos unless they were paid three million euros.

The news comes after recent reports that the Australian may soon be evicted from Ecuador’s London embassy which he has sought refuge in since 2012.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won a re-election in what would be his fifth term as head of a coalition government.

With more than 99 per cent of votes counted, Netanyahu's conservative Likud Party has won following his challenger conceding defeat.

Netanyahu is poised to become the longest-serving Israeli prime minister in July, overtaking the country's founding father, David Ben-Gurion.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that the federal election will be held on Saturday the 18th of May 2019.

The announcement was made at a press conference held by the Prime Minister on Thursday morning, following an early meeting with the governor general, Sir Peter Cosgrove.

Morrison says there is a “clear choice” at this election, with “so much at stake,” and that the decision Australians make will not only determine the economy for the next three years, but the next decade.

A new international report warns of the growing threats from job automation, saying that middle-class Australians are facing lower incomes or absolute poverty at some of the fastest rates in the developed world.

Ahead of an election campaign that will be dominated by appeals for equality, a report from the OECD released on Thursday said high-income earners in Australia were gaining access to a larger share of national income, leaving less for everyone else.

Queensland health is urging women to undergo cervical cancer testing after a new report showed that only around 53 percent of eligible women undertook the life-saving test in 2015-2016.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young calls a drop in testing is “alarming”, as 57 per cent less woman are getting screened than a decade ago.

Young says there has not been a drop in cervical cancer in the past decade and that women not getting tested are really putting themselves at risk.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has threatened to sue Katter’s Australian Party leader, Robbie Katter.

Katter says Palaszczuk’s lawyers sent him a letter, calling for an apology and a retraction of statements he made calling for the Premier to be charged over threats made to cut additional staff funding after they refused to denounce Senator Fraser Anning’s “final solution” speech.

The first glimpse of the event horizon of a black hole can now be seen for the very first time as a result of a seven-year project linking telescopes all over the world.

The world-first image shows the supermassive black hole at the centre of M87, a neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way.