Any Australian contemplating overseas travel would do well to ponder the political situation in the place to be visited. It is all too easy to get arrested for no wrong doing - but merely because you were " in the wrong place - at the wrong time ! "
Three Americans have spent over a year in prison in Iran - accused of spying - when they were hiking near an ill defined border between Iraq and Iran. A dispute near Islands claimed by three countries has seen a fishing boat and it's crew seized by Japan - and it's captain facing a long gaol term.
Relations between Australia and Fiji are tense and there is always the possibility of similar action of retaliation if the Fijian government decided to force the issue by arresting an Australian tourist on trumped up charges.
Political tensions - religious tensions - and some very strange local laws and customs provide a mine field of risk for all oversea travellers from many nations.
When we make travel plans it would be a good idea to first consider all the possible risks involved - and that includes the sudden deterioration of existing tensions that may deliver us as pawns in a chess play not of our own making.
Better to be safe than to stray into the interplay between nations !
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