It appears that even the most far-flung corners of the world had the possibility of being affected by the events of 9/11/2001. Apparently, in late 2001 the gov't of Australia was considering settling about 500 Afghan refugees on Canton Atoll:

"In October 2001, a joint team of three Australian and two i-Kiribati officials travelled to Kanton Island in the Phoenix group (in the west of the country), to investigate if an abandoned US military base on the island could be used as a possible site for a detention camp. Kanton is truly a desert island, located 2,000 kilometres from the capital Tarawa and with no regular shipping or air services. Kanton was subsequently determined to be inappropriate, given the distance, cost and lack of infrastructure, and discussions with the Kiribati government appear to have lapsed."

from refugees/pacificsolution/
adriftinthepacific_OCAA.pdf>