Global Online population in 1999 - 171 million Web users worldwide. (NUA)      Global e-commerce Europe will surpass U.S. in e-commerce spending on consumer products in 2002. (Jupiter Communications)      2.5 Billion Hours Spent Waiting in 1998 According to John Roth, chief executive of Nortel Networks, an estimated 2.5 billion hours were wasted online last year as people waited for pages to download. Click here for full story.(NUA)      One Third of Belgians Purchase Online: A third of all Belgian Internet users have already made a purchase online and nearly 43 percent said they intend on buying something in the next year. Click here for full story.(NUA)      Europeans Opt for Local eMerchants: European consumers are increasingly buying from local vendors as opposed US vendors, according to a new Ecommerce study commissioned by Europay International and conducted by Jupiter Communications.Click here for full story.(NUA/Jupiter Communications)      Today, over 50% of the online community originates from outside the US. (IDC)      By 2005, non-US Web users are forecast to comprise 700 million of the total one billion users. (NUA)      An English message will not be understood by the growing number of non-English Web users, 35% of all users online today. (NUA)      The global e-commerce market is expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2001. (Global Sight Corporation)      Business users on the Web are three times more likely to purchase when addressed in their native language. (Forrester Research)      In India, there is an immediate demand for 500,000 additional Internet connections. (NUA)      47 million European households are expected to have Internet access by 2003. (NUA)      There will be over 24.3 million Internet users in Latin America by 2003. (NUA)   International Resources   Global Electronic Commerce International Sites on Electronic Commerce Policy Observatory on the Information Society—UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Recent studies of interest.