http://www.voanews.com/chinese/2005-05-06-voa82.cfm
http://home.donews.com/donews/article/7/77489.html
In recent Voice of America's News Chinese section, there is an article about Hanzi Smatter titled "汉字渐成美国年轻人追求时尚"; or in English, "American Youth Consider Chinese Characters Fashionable". (more at voanews.com and donews.com)
What I personally found interesting was the last sentence of the article:
据统计，目前全球学习中文的人数已达3000万，预计到2007年将有1亿人学习中文。
Translation:
According to statistics, currently there are 30 million [non-Chinese] people studying Chinese globally, this number is expected to reach 100 million by 2007.
