18/12/2012 Newsround

Go darker known and welcome to Newsround. And we have got a load

of Christmas crackers for you like this: Crash-landing on the moon.

catch up with Father Christmas's favourite football team. And here

meets the four-legged stars of a First, there is a major warning

about the future of elephants. Conservationists say so many of the

animals are being killed for their ivory tusks, they may be wiped out

in a few years. Trading in ivory is officially banned, but experts say

it is not working. African elephants living in the wild face

lots of threats from loss of habitat to disease, but now more

animals are being killed by poachers Thanh dying through

natural causes. The poachers are after this, Ivory, and the illegal

trade in it is bigger than ever before. Although the trade has been

banned for more than 20 years, selling ivory is still legal in

parts of Asia like China and Japan, which means there is a big demand

for it. Conservationists say this loophole in the law needs to be

closed. We need to try and get a ban on the sound of all ivory.

Tanzania has lost between 30 and 50% of its elephants in the last

few years. If something is not done to halt this killing, East Africa

will lose its elephants in the next five years. They Born Freedom

Foundation says around 30,000 elephants are killed by poachers

each year. Last year, 23 tonnes of illegal ivory was seized by

authorities, the tusks from around 2500 elephants. Last week a

shipment of 24 tonnes was found in Malaysia. There are several

elephants at the safari park. Poachers often target the older

elephants because they have the biggest tusks. When they are killed,

this leaves the herd of honourable and can lead to the younger ones

dying as well. I do not think people think where it comes from.

They do not think, an elephant has died for me to have this ornament

in my house and that is what we need to get across. If poaching

continues at this rate, soon there could be no elephants left living

in the wild. While a change in the law could help, as long as there is

a demand, poachers are likely to carry on killing the animals.

Conservationists are now calling for better education.

The people who are in charge of the money that pays for it Britain's

Paralympics and Olympics, have just repealed their next funding.

They are cutting the budget of some sports. Swimming will see its

funding cut for Rea at 2016. UK Sports says its decisions were

based on whether the sports met their targets this year.

Joy earning as now is Jody Cundy. You are a Paralympics cyclist and

you one two goals in Beijing. You are going to get some more money in

the next Olympics. How well that benefit you? It will benefit us

because we will be able to have more training camps and more

development of the younger riders coming through. We can continue to

perform and go to Rio and be in the best shape possible. Some sports

will not get more funding. They will suffer, is that fair?

Unfortunately, that is how it has always been done. It is always

based on performance at the Olympic Games. Cycling did very well, so we

get a bonus. Some sports have lost their funding completely. Now they

need sponsors to come on board and help develop those sports. Why do

you think UK Sport has made this decision? I am not sure how it has

come about, but it has always done on a four-year cycle. It has always

been done on projections. If you do not win as many medals, the funding

gets cut. No pressure! Good luck in the next one.

Two Nasa spacecraft have crashed into the McCormack but don't worry,

it was done on purpose. They were fired into space last year to work

out the moon's secrets. Its crust is much thinner than they thought

and it was battered by asteroids and comets millions of years ago.

This is all about the Nasa mission. Two probes were travelling around

the moon to find out what it was made of. In the near future we hope

to send people in the Moon. But the mission has come to the end of its

light. NASA crashed the craft into the month's surfers, but they are

doing it so they know exactly where they land. On the moon's servers is

all sorts of historical information, like where the moon landings took

place. We do not want them crashing there. We keep the information site.

Eventually they will get covered in moon dust. We all want to play Mary

or Joseph in the school nativity, but most of us get stuck playing

the stars or even the sheep. Or the back end of a donkey. Leah has

always wanted to star as the Angel Gabriel and sheet it to a special

stage with a tea-towel wrapped around her head. You know it is

Christmas when a nativity play comes to town. Forget the glitz and

glamour of Hollywood, a you do not get much better than this. Unlike

most nativity plays these children are telling the story of baby Jesus

using real animals. Where they will behave? It was really funny, the

one I was holding was very naughty. The ship kept jumping up. Her did

you cope with a live performance? just kept pulling them back.

play is held on a farm that brings together Jordan with different

needs and abilities. It is an opportunity for the children to

come to the farm and beat the animals and learnt about fruit

production. In the Nativity the animals taking part in that brings

alive the Christian story. It is such a tight schedule that children

did not have any proper rehearsal time, so how did it go? It was

really fun and we got to see how good people are at acting. The best

thing for me was singing. I came dressed up as a shepherd, but the

only thing when you are using animals in a nativity play is that

somebody has to do the cleaning up at the end. I love her outfit.

you are doing a Christmas play, or if you have already had it, we want

to hear about it. Go to the website and tell us how it all went. Which

book or team does buy their Christmas support? The answer is FC

Santa Claus. There really is an FC Santa Clause who play in League Two

in Fenland. This season is over in Fenland for the winter, but here

are some of the players having a pre-Christmas kickabout in the snow.